WOMADelaide feat. Circle of Rhythm & Gotan Project @ Botanic Park, Adelaide (09/03/2007)
Can it be that a whole year really has passed since I was last at WOMADelaide? What an action packed year it has been for inthemix. I started off my 2007 WOMADelaide experience by attending the media conference in Botanic Park in the morning. A range of magazines, newspapers and television stations were represented in the crowd, and I found out later that day that I’d been spotted on Channel 7 news at the media conference. It was a great way to kick off the festival as we were treated to a few short performances, the most memorable of which was by the Mahotella Queens.
The main faces of the Mahotella Queens are Hilda Tloubatla, Nobesuthu Shawe Mbadu and Mildred Mangxola. This group in its original makeup was formed in 1964 and this veteran trio of grooving grannies has been performing for 43 years! The three women are now in their early to mid 60s and have the agility of 30 year olds. Their short performance at the media conference was enough to convince me to see them perform that night. It was a fantastic experience to see the three women transformed into a sensational hi-energy vocal and dance experience with the addition of their costumes and the rest of the band.
Each year WOMADelaide has a great lineup, there’s always something for everyone. If you have as varied taste in music as I do, you spend a huge amount of time rushing between stages to make sure you catch as much of each act on your list to see as you can. If you’re there for the whole festival then it’s not so frantic as quite a few of the groups play twice.
One such group is Circle of Rhythm, who performed Friday on night and Sunday, however, as I was only around for Friday night and Saturday afternoon, now was the only time that I could see them. Earlier in the week I’d been fortunate enough to have a chat to Bobby Singh the tabla player and found out a little more about their performance. Bobby explained to me why they’d chosen to call the group Circle of Rhythm. In fact, it was actually Ben Walsh’s suggestion. The reasoning behind the name of the group is that Indian rhythms repeat in a different way to western time keeping; for example, instead of having a 1,2,3,4 count and picking up the same rhythm with 1 after the 4, Indian rhythms tend to count 1,2,3,4 and the first rhythm starts again on the 4th beat.
The other regular members of the group are Greg Sheehan and Ben Walsh. If you’re a percussion junkie like I am, then you’ll recognise the names Ben Walsh and Bobby Singh, as these guys regularly perform together as The Bird. Greg Sheehan wasn’t able to make it over from Sydney for the WOMADelaide performance due to the surprise arrival of his wife’s baby. Despite missing a key member of the group, Bobby and Ben pulled together and delivered a smashing performance with the assistance of their guests Sarangan Sriranganathan on sitar and vocals, and multi-instrumentalist Matt (Mathew) Ostila.
Bobby Singh and Ben Walsh play in concert in a way that I’ve only ever seen in dancers. These two know each other’s percussion styles and rhythms so well that they egg each other on with beat challenges. It’s a delight to watch and no matter how many times I’ve seen these two perform together (or apart), the beat of the drums and the tabla is soul therapy for me. This is the rhythm of my blood.
For a completely different ethnic influence, the ultimate in tango dance fusion music, Gotan Project was the highlight of the night. This is another one of the acts that I was hanging out to hear. My first encounter with Gotan Project was in 2003 when a friend brought their first album La Revancha Del Tango back from Europe for me. The tango is at best of times a passionate style of music, the sultry sounds of violins and a piano accordion in combination with French DJ Philippe Cohen-Solal, Swiss programmer Christoph H. Müller and Argentinian guitarist Eduardo Makaroff is to die for. I spent the entire show trying to fight my way as close as possible to the stage, when I wasn’t swooning or dancing my own modern independent woman’s version of the tango. Needless to say, I was lost to the music and I was content to stay where I was and dance. Gotan Project released their second album last year, Lunatico. If you would like to get your pulse racing due to the sensual sound of the electro-tango that Gotan Project create, then I recommend getting hold of both of their albums.
Next and last up on the dance music bill for Friday night was Manchester’s Mr Scruff (Andy Carthy). Mr Scruff is far from scruffy; I think a more appropriate name for him could be Mr Neat or Mr Tidy. This guy has been mixing it up on UK dance floors since the early 1990s. Friday night was the first of his WOMADelaide performances as he was scheduled to play on Saturday night too. Despite the fact that it was getting late and that I’d pretty much worn out my dancing shoes at Circle of Rhythm and Gotan Project I still managed to bust out a few moves to his eclectic set, which included a variety of Latino, big band, and reggae sounds, mixed into some house and funk.
As midnight had come and gone and I needed some energy for Saturday afternoon’s WOMADelaide line-up, I decided it was time to wrap things up, say a zillion goodbyes and try and remember where I’d parked the car. What a great night of fusion beats and rhythms played by such a mix of musicians and artists from all sides of the globe.
Photos from WOMADelaide can be found in FunkyJ’s album.
