Read and Appreciated in 2003
A Year’s Best List
The following are my top albums of 2003:
Deb, Soaud Massi
A gorgeous voice, beautiful melodies, politically committed but romantic lyrics, great musicianship from the likes of Hamid Djouhri and Mohamed Bennis, and a generous pinch of undefined magic combine to turn this album from the Algerian songwriter into a classic. Soaud’s beautiful ‘Moudja’ is so bittersweet it hurts but her ‘Yawlidi’ is bouncy enough to shake all that hurts to bits, even though it is actually quite a sinister song. Soaud’s life has been threatened by fanatics in her home country and she is now a self imposed exile in Paris.
Love Trap, Susheela Raman
A gorgeous voice, beautiful melodies, mysterious and seemingly ancient lyrics, great musicianship and a generous pinch of erotically charged magic combine to turn this album into another classic. More sultry than summer, more spicy than coriander, but paradoxically cool, Susheela has absolute command of her material. This album is a more than worthy follow up to her earlier SALT RAIN, which was one of my favourite albums of last year.
Parts of the Process, Morcheeba
Skye Edwards must surely be one of the most charismatic singers around. This album is a ‘best of’ compilation and the selection of tracks from Morcheeba’s previous albums is rather sublime, including such sparkling songs as ‘The Sea’, ‘Trigger Hippie’ and ‘World Looking In’, awash with shimmer and sweetness, and more groovy numbers such as ‘Blindfold’ and ‘What New York Couples Fight About’. Morcheeba are the masters of trip-hop but they also know how turn the dancefloor into a series of colliding tectonic plates.
Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, Stereolab
Avant-Garde middle of the road. That is how Stereolab described their own sound and it is accurate enough. Imagine Sergio Mendes style vocals over layers of experimental acoustics all underpinned by swirling rhythmic patterns. The result is both familiar and new, comfortably weird and strangely comforting. Sadly multi-instrumentalist Mary Hansen was killed while riding her bicycle through the busy London streets in late 2002.
Gigi, Gigi
I’m not actually sure what the title of this album is, or even if it has one, but I have no doubts at all about the magic of Ejigayehu Gigi Shibabaw’s voice and songs, nor about the wealth of experience of the musicians who perform her compositions, names as luminous as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Dereje Mekonnen. I first discovered Gigi on the excellent Putumayo album, Music from the Coffee Lands Vol 2, which also introduced me to Ceumar, Correo Aereo and Emeline Michel. The Gigi song, ‘Guramayle’ was one of the standout tracks from that compilation but her other songs are no less striking.
