Album Review: World Routes, On the Road

Over the last ten years, Radio 3’s World Routes show has followed BBC journalism in pursuit of good music. The producers, presenters and sound engineers have lugged their equipment to some of the most remote and war-torn parts of the world, with various foreign correspondents acting as translators and local advisors. The obstacles they have overcome in capturing these sounds should not be underestimated; a track recorded high in the Caucasus was made possible thanks to an ex-Soviet M18 helicopter, kindly lent to World Routes by the Georgian Air Force.

For different reasons of impracticality, a Ugandan pit-xylophone is an incredibly rare thing to have on record. The instrument requires a freshly dug hole in which the players sit, and we should feel very privileged to have this piece of Uganda transported into our living rooms.

“Two men sit opposite each other and beat out their parts, while a third plays a rapid clatter of patterns on the highest keys,” explains ethnomusicologist Peter Cooke.

“A fourth player sounds a simpler tenor part, while singers join in along with a couple of players on one-string fiddles and rattles to complete the ensemble.”

The rich, earthy resonance of Waire Nzira Nte (Even I don’t have a cow) has an authenticity only given full appreciation after reading On the Road’s extensive sleeve notes, with every track on the compilation having an equally fascinating back story.

It seems fitting that the only international star on the compilation is a Malian. The Grammy award-winning Toumani Diabaté welcomes us into his home, offering an intimate kora track - recorded in one take, of course - in an unusual minor key tuning. The effect is hauntingly beautiful; Musu Maramba was passed down to Toumani from his late father. Listen out for the passing whistle of the Bamako-Dakar train in the fade out.

Two of Africa’s island nations, Cape Verde and Madagascar, further demonstrate the benefits of World Routes’ "us to you" as opposed to "you to us" philosophy. These recordings capture more than would be possible in a UK studio, with tropical birds providing a backing to Sambiasy & Samba’s string/vocal duet. Both nationalities have a short but racially diverse history; Cape Verde’s proximity with the transatlantic slave trade led to frequent settlement from Europeans, whilst Madagascar was one of the last reaches of Polynesian outrigger canoe exploration.

For a genre often criticised for grouping unrelated cultures into a single exotic other, these migratory paths have produced true examples of ‘world music’. Cape Verde and Madagascar are unobvious but well chosen subjects for World Routes, and, exaggerated here by geographical isolation, epitomise why compilations like this deserve the attention that the Western concept of music categorisation neglects.

World Routes: On the Road is due for release on the 16^th of January

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