| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
Music - Pop |
December 2003 |
By Alidė Kohlhaas
If you want to hear music from the heart of Africa, Ngagara, a CD from CBC Records that is part of its Global Village Series, will take you there. Of course, it wasn't recorded in Africa, but in the Lower Town of Ottawa. The musicians, however, including the Mighty Popo, come from various African nations, most of which have undergone heartrending changes.
This CD presents music that is both familiar and yet very foreign to us. Its rhythms are strange to our ears, yet they can be amazingly captivating. This music celebrates and at the same time mourns Africa, it is defiant and yet offers peace.
The various musicians have drawn on sounds, on music that they heard before they left Africa and recreated it in the studio located in a run-down building that has become their musical home. As the liner notes stated, it is global and yet, "It's as Canadian as snow on the Ottawa River, as African as we could make it, . . ."
As always, CBC Records has brought its expertise to the fore to create good sound on the 11 tracks. It's not music for everyone, but it is definitely music for the adventurous.
To find out more about the group, go to www.mightypopo.ca
[Ngagara, Mighty Popo, CBC Records, TRCD 3005, 40:38 minutes]
By Alidė Kohlhaas
If you are an insomniac and watch television in the wee hours, you may have come across ZeD, which starts airing around 11:00 p.m. on some weeknights. It is a kind of interactive Canadian "Town Hall" meeting for youthful creative self-expression. It can even be heard over the internet 24/7 at http://zed.cbc.ca
It is supposed to capture the national "Zeitgeist" and provide an artistic profile of the country. Well, let us say, it is an artistic profile of pop culture, and consequently as changeable as the wind.
Now CBC Records has captured some of the bands that have appeared on the show during its inaugural season which happened to start in February 2002 on a CD called ZeD: Life Off the Floor. It's a mixed bag of music from hip hop to heavy metal and in between. While the featured bands, recorded live at various Canadian venues, are mostly Canadian, there are a few from the UK, Australia and the USA. The TV series, and the music are an interesting mix of visual and sound bites from across Canada. The CD liner notes features art that was obviously shown on the show, which also airs short films, dance, and spoken poetry alongside the very varied music.
If you are, like me, a lover of classical music and jazz, then this CD will give you an idea what all the strange terms like rap, hip hop and heavy metal are all about that you hear all around you. There is also folk, and R&B music included. In other words: it features every kind of popular music, except jazz, which by now has — rightly so been pushed into the classical arena.
There are 17 tracks of music that bear the imprint of live recordings and so vary in quality. It is an interesting mix of material, some of which is quite catching.
[ZeD: Live Off The Floor, CBC Records, TRCD 3008, 75:19 minutes]
Copyright © 2003-8 CamKohl Arts Productions