Seed
- by Afro Celt Sound System
- Real World Region: Africa, Europe
- Mar 2003
It's seven years since Afro Celt Sound System first assaulted our senses with their innovative fusion of West African rhythms, Irish traditional music and cutting-edge dance grooves. In that time there have been many lesser imitators and the global beat movement they pioneered has entered the mainstream.
Now the original innovators are back with a new name, a new album and a new approach. Gone is Afro Celt Sound System. In its place emerges a band called Afro Celts and their most rewarding album yet, 'Seed'.
"We didn't start the album intending to drop the sound system," says guitarist and co-producer Simon Emmerson. "But it became apparent as we made the record that we're NOT a sound system any more. We've developed a very defined sound which has come from us playing together. It's not about a DJ and programmes and samples. It's taken a long time. But we've finally become a band."
Recorded and produced in their own studio in Islington (once owned by Pink Floyd), the result is an album that marks a new departure for the Afro Celts in a journey which began when they came together at a Real World recording week in 1995 to make their ground-breaking debut, Volume One: Sound Magic.
More organic with greater emphasis on real instruments and songcraft and with less reliance on programmed beats and grooves than before, 'Seed' is the most rounded and fully-realised Afro Celts album to date.
"When we started seven or eight year ago, what we did was a very radical idea," Simon Emmerson says. "Now everyone's using DJs and programmed loops and ethnic samples over the top. We've moved on and what you hear on this album is a product of all the years of playing live and interacting with each other as musicians."
"We've found our own space and it's almost like we're starting again," adds co-producer and multi-instrumentalist, James McNally. "We made three sound system albums. This is the first fully-developed band album. It's called 'Seed' because it really does feel like a new beginning. There's no way we could have made a record like this when we started."
Of course, 'Seed' contains much that will be familiar to Afro Celts fans. The core members have remained remarkably constant - Simon Emmerson (guitars), James McNally (keyboards,piano, bodhran, bamboo flute), Iarla O Lionaird (vocals), Martin Russell (keyboards, programming & co-production), N'Faly Kouyate (vocals, kora, balafon), Myrdhin (harp), Moussa Sissokho (percussion), Johnny Kalsi (dhol drum, tabla), Mass (drum programming) and Emer Maycock (uilleann pipes).
The magical process of how the band's three producers, James, Martin and Simon, work together is the key to what Afro Celts albums are about - how they bounce ideas off of and inspire each other. With three people having to find a way to interplay and connect - sometimes disagreeing and deciding to leave a track on the shelf for at least the time-being - it sets a standard much higher than that which could be achieved by any one musician producing alone. It's only after the triumvirate have set up the tracks that they call upon the spiritual and emotional impact that Iarla and N'faly bring to their songs respectively, and upon the technical ability of Mass.
Yet as they have grown as a band, roles have subtly shifted. As Mass has taken over most of the drum programming, Simon has been freed to play more guitar, mandolin and bazouki. On the title track of 'Seed', he even plays some classic, swamp-laden slide. Iarla has grown in stature as a lyricist of considerable depth and feeling. James has continued to cement a reputation as a tour de force both in song/tune composition and with his vocal and strings arrangements. The influence of N'Faly - 'the Jimi Hendrix of the kora', the band call him - has become more significant as he has contributed more to the singing and writing. The percussion loops of Johnny Kalsi have given way to live drumming, and the band decided quite early on in the recording process that they also wished to use a real bass on the majority of tracks, with guest players including the eminent Jah Wobble.
The result is an album that sounds more natural and organic than anything we've heard from the Afro Celts before with more emphasis on the playing and less on the programmed beats. "We've got great musicians in this band,"says Iarla. "In the past we were trusting too much to machines. On this album we learned to trust ourselves."
Musically, it's also immediately obvious that Afro Celts are still boldly expanding their horizons. The West African and Irish influences are still the bedrock of the sound. Yet within 'Seed's first three tracks, we hear such diverse new elements in the meltdown as a flamenco guitar and a Brazilian vocalist.
Afro Celts remain innovators and the first rule of innovation is that once you've got a formula - however successful - it's time to throw it out. "The good thing is that now we're functioning as a band, we can introduce new things and it still remains identifiably Afro Celts, without turning into world fusion brown soup," says Simon.
'Seed' also marks the emergence of Afro Celts as fully-formed songwriters. For a soundscape, as they are the first to point out, does not of itself make a song.
"It's as if we've found the vehicle to begin our songwriting career," James says. "There are so many bands making ambient soundscapes. It's so easy to do. You buy a sampler, hit a button and it's all there. For us the soundscapes are merely platforms to create songs. Otherwise it's just a beat or a groove or a vibe. Volume 3 was for us a huge breakthrough in songwriting confidence. To have the likes of Peter Gabriel and Robert Plant agree to come on board and sing our songs was confirmation that our songwriting was of significant quality. Also, to have a radio hit in the USA with the first full English song we had written together - 'When You're Falling' from Vol 3 - was just the beginning of us saying "Anything's possible". 'Seed' takes the songwriting another leap forward."
Iarla, whose lyrical contribution to 'Seed' is profound, agrees. "There are elements of some of these tracks that have been knocking around for years. But they were waiting to be turned into songs," he says. "You have to learn to wait until the time is right. This album seems freer and simpler than anything we've done before. In both the writing and recording it flowed in an incredibly natural way."
On past Afro Celts albums, the likes of Sinead O'Connor, Robert Plant and Peter Gabriel have contributed striking vocals to the mix.. On 'Seed' there's less emphasis on celebrity guests, a sign of Afro Celts growing faith in their own abilities as a band. "It was a memorable experience to work with singers like that," James says. "But the problem is when you have a really distinctive voice like Peter or Sinead or Robert, people hear the singer and not Afro Celts.I think we've achieved a position where we can convey everything without those big names and by maximising the musicianship within the band."
Not that the openess that has always characterised the Afro Celts approach has been completely banished. Among the honorary Afro Celts adding to the rich tapestry on 'Seed' are Irish rocker Mundy, Ms Dynamite's backing vocalists, the Brazilian singer Nina Miranda, the Canadian flamenco guitarist Jesse Cook and the virtuoso traditional fiddlers, Martin Hayes and Eileen Ivers.
Now the band are looking forward to taking the new material on the road this summer. "We mixed and arranged the record as we would play it live,"says Simon. "It's taken seven years of gigging to get here and develop a musical language of our own. It's very hard to listen to our music and say what genre it fits in. It's just Afro Celts."
Reviews
the Afro Celts leave the emphasis on programmed beats and grooves to their scores of imitators and capitalise on their stellar reputation as one of world musics-and, it must be said, the worlds-top live acts Probably one of the albums of the year.
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