Monday's Long Song

Today's long song is a guest post by the writer behind No Badger Required, a blog that has more ideas for posts and monthly series than many of us will ever manage, always beautifully written and based in his life. A few days ago I wrote a post for No Badger Required as part of the Nearly Perfect albums series that has been running on Saturdays for the last 97 weekends. It's about Sabresonic, the 1993 Sabres Of Paradise album. You can read it here. South West Correspondent promised me a Monday Long Song in return and has more than delivered with this, a song I might have missed if he hadn't sent it- and one that I've been playing repeatedly since he sent it. 

Over to SWC...

Unravelling – Ada Kaleh featuring Eric Leeds (2024 R&S Records)

I’m going to start with pleading my ignorance on three things.

Firstly, I have no idea what constitutes a long song.  When I was younger, anything that nudged seven minutes was considered to be an epic, and back then I only really listened to guitar music and therefore anything with guitars in it that went over seven minutes was probably prog rock or the end of a Stone Roses album.  But then I started listening to Underworld and Goldie and frankly anything under seven minutes was considered to be short and snappy. 

So I’ve plumped for something where the track running times runs into double digits in the minute column - to be honest the definition of a long song should be a song that goes on but is so good that you don’t even notice that it been playing for three days (or fifteen minutes, whichever is more realistic).

Secondly, I have no idea who Ada Kaleh is.  I expected it to be a female, because of the Ada bit.  I expected a little blue rinsed old granny with a twin set and pearls outfit on her way to Bingo.  But I am wrong, Ada Kaleh is two things, neither of them old and blue rinsed or even female.   It is most promimently an island located on the Rover Danube in Romania that was submerged in 1970 so that some gates could be constructed.  More importantly it is the name of a Romanian producer and composer who explores different sounds on his journeys through electronica. 

Finally, I also have no idea who Eric Leeds is.  I assumed it was going to be a vocalist, but when you hear the vocals, you instantly know it can’t be.  So wrong again.  Eric Leeds is in fact an American saxophonist and I think I might be the only person in the world who didn’t know that.

Which finally brings us to the track, ‘Unravelling’, which blends some Afro beat and some jazz (that will be the saxophone bit) alongside some minimal electronica which burbles away marvellously and then this voice pipes up, which just happens to be from the late great Fela Kuti – you’ll know that in about four seconds after he starts.  His vocal is great taking aim at “police beating heads, Shell Oil, petty crooks, bastard landlords and wifebeaters” and then calls for us to tackle all these criminals and take our destiny in our own heads. 

It’s proper goosebump stuff really as Fela speaks, the saxophone chirps away, the electronica enters a soft dubby loop and is gently caresses your ears like a minimalist pillow.  Just wonderful.

Gone

This came as a slap in the face yesterday, the news that Florian Schneider, co- founder of Kraftwerk and as a result one of the most influential musicians in post- war Europe, has died at the age of 73. Kraftwerk's importance cannot be overstated. Their pioneering music, use of machine rhythms, synths and keyboards, vocoders more or less invented the genre of electornic music. That they then popularised it with a mass market and continued to experiment makes their achievements even greater. Their influence on other artists from the 1970s onward is immeasurable. Florian Schneider met Ralf Hutter when both were students in Dusseldorf. It was Schneider who first purchased a synthesiser and said that was the direction they should pursue. Autobahn. Radio- Activity. Trans- Europe Express. The Man Machine. Computer World. Tour de France.

I saw them play at the Apollo in March 2004, one of the most memorable shows I've ever seen, from the four men- machines in lit up suits at their work stations across the front of the stage to the films projected onto three giant screens behind them, to the run through their greatest songs and the robots appearing from behind the curtain for the encore.

This is an impossibly beautiful song, the topline melody is heartbreakingly gorgeous. It is even better sung in German.

Neonlicht

R.I.P. Florian Schneider.

Equally sad (and equally pioneering) Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen died on April 30th of Covid 19 symptoms. I meant to do something about him sooner but things kept getting in the way so I'll pay tribute to him here. His work with Fela Kuti in the 1970s combined his Nigerian native music, Juju, with jazz and highlife. Fela's music and stance became increasingly militant especially with the Africa '70 group which Tony was the bandleader of. Brian Eno and Talking Heads were in awe of him. This one is from 1973 Tony drumming with Fela Kuti. I can't really do this music justice with a simple description. Just listen to it.

Jeun Ko Ku (Chop And Quench)

In recent times he worked with Damon Albarn in his The Good, The Bad And The Queen supergroup, his Africa Express project and Gorillaz. Following his death Damon released this Gorillaz song in honour of him, Tony Allen still the bang on those rhythms aged 79. This quote was put out with it-

“I want to take care of youngsters – they have messages and I want to bring them on my beat.” Tony Allen

R.I.P. Tony Allen

Afro Camp

Afrobeat pioneer and outspoken defender of Africa's poor, the late Fela Kuti has had 48 of his albums uploaded onto Bandcamp. Seems a little odd, Fela Kuti being neither an unknown singer-songwriter nor a local band looking for a new model of distribution but there you go. I'm no expert on Fela Kuti- try this one...