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It’s hard to fathom that we are almost three decades on since Massamba Diop’s tama (a talking drum from Senegal), with programmed keyboards, a sprinkling of kora and harp, laid the ground for Ronan Browne’s arresting uilleann pipes, which began Afro Celt Sound System’s first record, Volume 1: Sound Magic in 1996. It marked the beginning of a new, exciting, innovative, collaborative musical endeavour. OVA, their eighth studio album, and follow-up to 2018’s Flight, is no less exhilarating than what has come before. Long-time (since the second 1999 album Release) band member, kora, and balafon player N’faly Kouyaté describes OVA as: “the pinnacle of Simon [Emmerson]’s artistic career. He invested every fibre of his being into this work.” The Afro Celt founder Simon Emmerson, who sadly died last year, had seen an affinity between West African and Irish music when he was in Dakar producing part of Baaba Maal’s 1992 album Lam Toro; Massamba Diop played on that album, and Davy Spillane, another uilleann piper, played on two of the three tracks Emmerson produced and went on the play on a number of Afro Celt albums.
Afro Celt Sound System’s lineup has perennially shifted, and the distinction between core band members makes little sense as the core band membership itself has never stood still (they also had a major split in 2015), and guests came, went, and came back. On OVA, besides Emmerson, Ronan Browne and Irish singer Iarla Ó Lionáird are the only survivors from the first album (they each play on just one track). Post-split 2016 resurgence regulars who are still there include Manchester-based Irish singer and flute player Ríoghnach Connolly, Robbie Harris on bodhran and Simon “Mass” Massey on programming, keyboards, and electronica – who also co-produced the album with Emmerson. Johnny Kalsi (dhol drum, tabla), like N’faly Kouyaté, first played on the second album and has been a core member since but, but after the band’s very recent tour promoting the new album, they have announced, rather bluntly, that he ‘will no longer be performing or recording with the band.’ Who knows what follows?
In part, OVA originated in the pandemic when collaborative music had to be made remotely. In 2020, the Afro Celts were one of the artists due to appear at the Knockengorroch Festival in Scotland, which shifted to a virtual event because of lockdown. Their contribution (released on a CD of the virtual festival) was The Lockdown Reel, based on an idea from fiddle player Peter Tickell. It was made with Emmerson in Dorset, Robbie Harris playing bodhran in Ireland, Johnny Kalsi drumming in London, N’Faly Kouyaté playing and singing in the open air in his home village Siguiri in Guinea, and others scattered far and wide. It has a joyful, spontaneous feel, perfectly combining a Celtic style melody – Ríoghnach Connolly playing the flute – with West African rhythms, and, though likely the earliest recorded track, is last in the album – one to lift your spirits.
The opening track, The Hawk Owl’s Lament, seems a little out of place with the mood and punch of the rest of the album. A recording of an owl at the start, made by The Sound Approach, opens the way for a lengthy (over 10 minutes) sprawling, atmospheric, mostly instrumental track – Kouyaté sings a bit towards the end – which is distinguished in particular by the playing throughout of hammered dulcimer by Joshua Messick, with what both kora and dobro weaving around the dulcimer, some fiddle, pipes and cello in the background, and a mid-way climactic multiple drum section. Less consequential than other tracks, it feels like an outtake from the last Lush Fresh Made Sound album, Highlands.
Snatches of fiddle from Peter Tickell, which could come from Shakti’s L. Shankar, played over electronic keyboard chords, introduce The Mantra, joined by a similarly South Asian backing vocal intonation and Kalsi’s tabla, all before the unmistakable voice of Ríoghnach Connolly tenderly soars over the meditative whole. The second half of the song maintains the contemplative mood of the rhythm and singing but also swells with the addition of deep bass from Richard Evans and drums by Ged Lynch echoing the tabla, then a return to the fiddle motif before a plea of some kind from N’faly Kouyaté ends a genuinely transportive 7 minutes.
Magical Love is a transcendent highlight. Choppy electronic keyboards from Simon “Mass” Massey, with a short, barely audible spoken part by Kouyate, come before a marching electro beat and muti-voice chorus recorded in Guinea that lay the ground for Ríoghnach Connolly’s potent song. Connolly sings with real intent and urgency that signals that this is not a song about romantic love but rather, as she talked about in a video recently, about “the idea of female energy, of the mother, the daughter, the sister and how that’s placed in relation to power, in terms of colonialism, and in terms of war, and how our bodies are used to militarise, used to inflict ideology, how we are dispensable.” You can hear both the fear and the determination in her voice as she sings about those women affected by conflict – ‘All of them running, all of them hiding, all of them trying to find a safe place’ – and about those participating in struggles for freedom ‘I am a fighter, running for cover, standing up for what’s right’. The rhythm becomes insistent as singer Djekoria Fanta Condé and Kouyaté share a short vocal section before Connolly returns with some of the verses. The song feels particularly apposite in light of the disproportionate killing of women and children in Gaza.
A gorgeous combination of kora, bodhran, fiddle and the mellifluous voice of Scottish Gaelic singer Griogair Labhruidh underpin La Paix, which translates as peace and quiet or, sometimes, freedom from war. It unfolds with a calm, undulating cadence, a part spoken/part sung segment from Kouyaté, fiddle flourishes and bass and drums sliding in, adding depth to the rhythm. Radio Ronza is an instrumental with multi-part vocal, which initially mixes beats, Tama, and a lovely descending run on the balafon before a heavier beat with bass and bodhran precedes swirling uilleann pipes from Matt Bashford and Ronan Browne on the whistle. It gets closer to their much earlier dance-heavy sound than other tracks here, but it still has an intricate feel.
The Celts almost get a rest on N’Faly Foli, an exuberant, unambiguously West African take on a song highlighting the importance of freshwater co-written by Kouyaté and Condé, with musical additions by Emmerson – Harris’s bodhran and pipes, this time by Lottie Cullen (Afro Celts have had a very long line of different pipers) blending in seamlessly. Bâdji kan waly – which translates as Sea Voyage – is another Kouyaté co-write, this time with Simon “Mass” Massey, and is musically back in more typical Afro Celts fusion territory as kora, electronic beats and bass battle it out, a flourish of dhol drums later in the song. Kouyaté dedicated the song to his late niece and warns of the dangers of the migration options open to refugees in the absence of European Governments providing safe routes after she and her two-year-old daughter had drowned off the coast of Tunisia, trying to get to Europe.
Bríd Bhán is a song Ríoghnach Connolly learned from her Uncle Déaglán (both are in their wonderful family band Lí Ban) and which tells the story of a woman in Donegal who agrees to marry a man but changes her mind when she sees the location of her husband’s house and longs to be back where she came from, and all his efforts to persuade her otherwise are met with scorn. Connolly’s voice, singing in Irish, sits atop a rolling rhythm from kora, bodhran and bass, her flute playing the melody in the middle vocal break and kora improvisation in a second instrumental break, in a perfect, soothing alliance of the band’s core component sounds. From one exalted Irish singer to another, Iarla Ó Lionáird returns on the track AM. Morse code like electronic keyboard precedes Ó Lionáird’s spoken introduction, followed by a few words in response from Kouyaté before a beat heralds Ó Lionáird’s vocals – the electronics serve well as an unobtrusive base for a typically unique, captivating performance from the singer. OVA maintains the more nuanced, less dance-driven sound Afro Celt Sound System developed after their decade-long hiatus ended with the release of The Source in 2016 and then on Flight in 2018, Ríoghnach Connolly notably adding balance and incomparable depth throughout. In terms of equilibrium, the band strike the perfect balance between continuity and change in who plays what and when. Whatever comes next for Afro Celts, OVA shows no let-up in their recording of thrilling, incredibly varied music that knows no boundaries. It is a fitting final testament to Simon Emmerson’s vision and his immense feat in making it happen.
OVA (11th October 2024) Six Degrees Records
Bandcamp: https://sixdegreesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ova-2
