Atwood Jumps the Shark in Last Third of New Novel

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THE HEART GOES LAST (2015)

Margaret Atwood

Doubleday, 38 pages

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When it comes to dystopia, Margaret Atwood is a go-to name. Her 1986 novel, The Handmaid's Tale, is surely among the greatest works of that genre, and subsequent offering such as Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam are only a cut or two below. Atwood returns to things-fall-apart themes in The Heart Goes Last, but this time her major distinction is one I doubt she wants: one of the worst examples of a great writer thoroughly losing control of her creation. The first two-thirds of The Heart Goes Last has the makings of an important novel, but the last third spirals out of control in ways that can only be labeled "embarrassing." It's the kind of bad that if had been submitted in a fiction-writing class, the instructor would have handed it back with demands that it be reconceptualized and rewritten. 

[Warning: A few spoilers occur below.]

The best dystopian works build upon what is imaginable. Atwood has a killer premise–a not-so-distant economic collapse occasioned by greedy speculators has divided society into haves and have-nots (!). The have-nots are desperate–vast segments of the population live in Mad Max realms of thievery, rapine, and violence. At the center of this is a young couple, Stan and Charmaine. In better times they were the poster children for success–he a business high-flyer and she a medical social worker. Now they live in a used Honda, trying to scrape by with Charmaine's part-time job at a retirement center and Stan's ability to sense danger and move the car before gangs overtake them. Things are so bad that Stan must approach his brother Conor, a petty crook and fixer for bigger gangsters, for some cash.

Their life takes a turn when Charmaine hears a recruitment ad for a walled community called Consilience, with its promises of homes, clean sheets, showers, jobs, gardens, and community. There is, of course, a catch—as they learn when they attend the recruitment seminar: if you are accepted, you can't leave. Stan smells a rat, but yields to Charmaine's dreams of cleanliness and stability. Consilience is everything it's billed to be. The past is often a retreat when things go wrong, and Consilience is straight out of a gee-whiz view of the Golden Fifties: neat suburban homes with hedges and lawns, practical furniture, safe streets, and clustered neighborhoods. In fact, it's so Fifties that Consilience has banished things that might be viewed as disruptive—its entertainment options center on Doris Day, Bing Crosby, wholesome movies, and religious-values TV. But they quickly learn that Consilience is a literal con game. The Positron Corporation that runs the community has a motto: DO TIME NOW, BUY TIME FOR THE FUTURE. 

Consilience is just half of the community, the other half being Positron, a prison. The whole deal is run by Ed, a combination Svengali and Big Brother. His vision of a well-functioning society is unique: each home is shared by two couples, but in alternating months. For one month Stan and Charmaine are 50s-style homeowners, while their alternates—whom they never meet—do time in Positron. When the calendar month flips, roles reverse. Still, Positron is gender-segregated but humane, more like a college dorm with work requirements. Residents think this is how the company makes its money and Charmaine doesn't question it as she's a 50s kind of gal at heart. But production based on crocheted teddy bears, electric scooters, and soft goods literally doesn't add up. Nor does all that wholesomeness, and when Stan finds a sexy note left by "Jasmine" for her partner "Max," Stan begins to fantasize about their wild sex life in dangerous ways. Charmaine also worries–about Stan's grumpiness, her desires, and her Positron job in "Special Procedures."

Great stuff so far. Atwood could have done a great take-down of faux Fifties values–after all, the historical Fifties were more tin than golden.* Instead, she jumped the shark. Rule one for all writers: avoid jolting tone shifts. After building a bleak future, establishing ominous suspicion, and placing her characters in peril, Atwood shifts to humor of the lowest, sophomoric proportions. I'll say nothing about the narrative, but the book's resolution depends upon all of the following: out-of-control libido, sexbots, Vegas, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe impersonators (some of whom are gay for seemingly gratuitous reasons), a woman sexually fixated on a Teddy bear, a takeoff on the Blue Man Group, and another special procedure that makes the old Clovers' pop song "Love Potion No. 9" seem scientific by comparison. Does this sound promising? Kirkus called the novel "dystopian clichés played as farce," but that's too kind. It's simply bad.

Tell you what—read this novel up to the point where Stan is chosen to expose Positron, then email me: I'll tell you what happens so you don't have to cringe over each page that follows. Call it a public service on my part!  Rob Weir

* Historical footnote: The 1950s is often viewed by neo-cons are the golden past. It was also a time of paranoia, atomic nightmares, communist witch-hunts, brutal racism, patriarchy run amok, and pressures for conformity that led to rebellion. The Fifties, not the Sixties, was the true era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Infidelity, divorce, delinquency, and sales of sex mags skyrocketed. Rock music emerged along with rebels such as Beats and civil rights activists. It was also the era with the greatest number of drug addicts in American history: pill-popping housewives!  (For the record, Millennials also have much higher drug consumption rates than Sixties' Baby Boomers.)

Fair Helen: A Thrill, a History Lesson, and Some New Vocabulary

FAIR HELEN (2014)

Andrew Greig

Quercus Publishing, 384 pages

* * * *

If you want to immerse yourself in some challenging and rewarding reading, download Scottish writer Andrew Greig’s Fair Helen. (You’ll probably wish to download it as only hard cover copies have made their way to our shores.) Beware: Although the novel is written with Greig’s customary elegance, many of the terms that appear are from the Lowland Scots dialect and you’ll need to consult the book’s glossary for many of them. (I did a cut-paste-printout for the ones I was having trouble remembering.)

Is the effort worth it? I think so. Fair Helen is a 17^th century historical drama/romance based upon a tragic ballad as filtered through Sir Walter Scott’s second volume of The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Got that? Let me explain. James VI of Scotland has just ascended to the English throne as James I and, in 1603, brought about the union of the two crowns. If you think this brought peace, think again. We’re still 200 years from the birth of modern nation-states, which means that regional identities trumped any sort of nationalism. That is to say, not only did people view themselves as Scots or English– the Crown be damned–they also subdivided.  A Lowland Scot knew he was different from a Highlander or a Glaswegian, just as he knew he wasn’t a Northumbrian or a Cumbrian (English). Since no one agreed on where the borders between any of these places lay exactly, vast tracts of the Borders were known as the Debatable Lands. Moreover, local power on both sides of the questionable divides lay in the hands of powerful families and clans, with lesser folk allying with whomever they thought could offer the best patronage and protection. 

Greig takes us inside a world of treachery, bloodshed, and shifting loyalties through an likely means: he imagines the back-story of Helen of Annandale, an Irvine family beauty about whom history knows next to nothing other than she is the tragic subject of a Scots ballad known as “Helen of Kirkconnel.” If Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships, Helen of Kirkconnel was the fair lovely face that set hundreds of horsemen and soldiers into bloody glens. The book is narrated by her cousin, Harry Langton, a scholar and writer more comfortable in Edinburgh than among the unwashed, unlearned, sanguinary warriors of the Borders. He’d not be there at all, were it not that he was born in the Debatable Lands and his boyhood friend Adam Fleming is on the cusp of becoming a laird. Adam is also one of the rivals for Fair Helen’s hand, the other being the violent and even more powerful Rob Bell.  In Greig's telling, Helen may have been fair, but chastity was not among her virtues. Within the patriarchal world of the 17^th century, Helen is not at liberty to choose her future husband—acquisition of land, power, and patronage trumps love.

The novel is a complex tale of scheming, double-dealing, spying, politics, and shifting alliances involving Border families such as the Irvings, Bells, Scotts, Armstrongs, and Grahams. Each thought themselves noble and exalted, though history’s judgment is that most were petty tyrants with grandiose ideas. In short, Helen a pawn in a big game played by small men. Call it love, lust, and mayhem in a place where borders are abstractions and rights are asserted by the thrust of a blood-tipped sword. Fair Helen isn’t an easy read for those unfamiliar with Lowland Scots but, then again, neither is Sir Walter Scott. Wade through this—the thrills outweigh the required language lessons.      Rob Weir

Postscript:  Music plays a big role in this novel, as it does in many of Greig’s works. If you’d like some instrumental background accompaniment, secure a superb CD from Kathryn Tickell titled Debatable Lands. (Topic PRKCD50).  Tickell is a talented fiddler and is considered one of the foremost virtuosos of the Northumberland bagpipes, a much buzzy, sweeter, non-blown cousin of the Highland pipes. As this suggests, she hails from the English side of the Debatable Lands though borders remain hazy. When I visited Berwick-upon-Tweed a few years back I wasn’t certain if I was in England or Scotland. The answer? It depends on whom you ask!

Super Tuesday Special Edition

The Truth behind the Bluster

What if truth in advertising laws applied to political campaigns? Let’s imagine what that would look like for the seven remaining contenders and let’s give each a sound bite grounded in reality.

Republicans

Donald Trump: A second-rate mind for a nation with third-rate values.

Trump is the very symbol of American decline, a bloviating snollygoster who appeals to all that is selfish, gauche, and mean-spirited in Americans. The fact that he hasn’t been laughed out of the race is its own statement about American stupidity. His actual business record is as thin as his hair, and his major achievement that he hasn’t yet managed to lose a $200 million inheritance. Look it up—it’s one failure after another with a wave of human wreckage left in Trump's wake. I’m surprised he hasn’t lobbied for the release of Bernie Madoff—that would make a great ticket. The Donald could claim that he wants a man at his side who understands the real workings of American business and one who shares his values. I think this Bernie will be tied up for a bit, so Trump ought to check out the availability of Ronald MacDonald. Theme song: “Send in the Clowns.”

Ted Cruz: I’m so mean my own mama don’t like me.

If this were the 1930s, Cruz would be a Father Coughlin Brown Shirt. Cruz is proof that Canadian niceness isn’t in the DNA. What does it tell you when no one in the Republican Party can stand this SOB? He’s meaner than a snake and more dangerous than a coiled cotton mouth. I don’t use the term “fascist” lightly, but he might well be one. And he’s so damn stupid he doesn’t even realize that the old-style rightwing would have seen him as brown-skinned, not brown-shirted. Perfect running mate: Rand Paul. Theme song: “Must Wanna Get Nasty.”  

Marco Rubio: Don’t I look good in my empty suit?

Rubio looks the most presidential looking of them all, but don’t be fooled: Donald Trump is way more liberal than Rubio. Rubio is Rick Santorum with a human face. He is pro-gun and anti-choice, anti-immigrant, anti-tax, and anti-New Deal/Great Society. His foreign policy is an ill-conceived bundle of nonsense packaged in rhetoric straight out of the Cold War. If you thought Obama was inexperienced and naïve, check out this dude. Running mate: Sarah Palin—she doesn’t understand nuance either. Theme song: “The Asshole Song.”

Ben Carson: Don’t be fooled, I really am crazy.

Ahh, the good doctor—black, affable, amusing, and did I mention that he’s black? A black Republican? Who does he think he is: Clarence Thomas? If you need further proof he’s nuts, ask him about dinosaurs. He’s comic relief for the GOP and the poor man is too far gone to realize it. Running mate: Simon Legree from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Theme song: “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-ha.”

John Kasich: Do you know me?

He smiles, he doesn’t drool, and not many people know a damn thing about him. Perfect! He ought to be the clear-cut front runner, but isn’t--proof that the GOP suffers from a mental malady known as Bencarsonitis. He’s the only Republican whose record is so obscure that he could actually win. Think of it—he’d be competitive in every state in the Union except Ohio, where they actually do know him. Running mate: Caspar the Friendly Ghost—no one sees him either. Theme Song: “Would You Like to be My Neighbor.”

Democrats

Hillary Clinton: I’m (Kinda ) Like Bill: All of the smarm, but without the charm

Some of us in Massachusetts see Hillary as Martha Coakley times 50, but that’s unfair; Coakley was merely an inept candidate, not one with more baggage than Samsonite. Hillary is packaging herself as the “realistic” candidate, a much nicer term than “status quo.” I keep waiting, but it seems that all she has going for her is name recognition, sanity, and an extra X chromosome. Democratic voters need to be very careful, because only one candidate has more negatives than she: Ted Cruz. It’s not true that she’s more electable than Bernie Sanders—she’s the one Democrat who Trump stands a very good chance of defeating, especially if tons of disgusted voters stay home. Clinton has the Democratic Machine working to anoint her if the delegate count is close, but her campaign reeks of a desperation and an antiquarianism analogous to supporters such as Gloria “Jurassic” Steinem. Running mate: Too bad old faithfuls like Humphrey and Mondale are dead. Maybe Joe Biden would give it another whirl. Harry Reid? Theme song: “Yesterday”

Bernie Sanders: What you see is what you get

This election boils down to whether you want a charlatan or a honest person and here are only two candidates who actually say what they mean: Cruz and Sanders. It’s not hard for me to choose Rumpled Bernie over Nasty Ted. I keep hearing about how “unrealistic” it is to think a democratic socialist could get anything done. So what, exactly, is getting done now? If we must have stasis—and for the record, I think Sanders would be a much stronger leader than Obama—let’s at least elect someone with decent values who won’t lie to us. Running Mate: Yvette Clarke would be perfect—a liberal, African American, Republican member of Congress. Theme Song: “All I Have to Do is Dream.”  

Haymarket Squares: February Album of the Month

THE HAYMARKET SQUARES

LIGHT IT UP

http://www.haymarketsquares.com/

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If you stuck Tom Lehrer, Bill Bragg, and Phil Ochs in a bluegrass ensemble you might end up with something like The Haymarket Squares, a quintet that labels its music "punkgrass." The insouciance of punk is evident, though the Squares are funnier, more musically accomplished than most punk bands, and paint from a more diverse melodic palette–some blistering rock, a dollop of Spanish guitar, or a flight into klezmer. The artistic core remains bluegrass, but don't expect formula. The closest they come is the breakdown feel of "Horrible Intentions," but it's a song about how the armed guardians of the US border serve masters who profit from the very fears they manufacture.

That alone should tell you that the Haymarket Squares are a political band–a deliciously retro throwback to the days in which folk music was message music from the left of center, not a narcissistic look-at-me confessional. Like the late Utah Phillips, though, the Squares prefer humor to polemics. "Heaven" is a bluegrass gospel take-down of organized religion with lines such as "There ain't no heaven, got make one here." It's hard not to think of pompous fools like Donald Trump when you hear lyrics in "King Me" such as: "I'm a monarchist, and I'm here to say/I can solve the problems that we face today/If you bend the knee, and give all power to me/I will lead this land to glory, like no other king before me/Bringing back the aristocracy." They even make light of the national Security Administration: "Tell me your secrets, tell me you hopes/What you had for breakfast, your off-color jokes/I am a guy who will listen all day/Your new best friend-I'm the NSA." Even the title is funny: "No Such Agency." Remember the old Phil Ochs song "Love Me, I'm a Liberal?" Check out the band's update, "Part of the Problem."

When they wish, the Haymarket Squares can work up a righteous lather, as in "High demand," when they take on the National Incarceration State," or "Working Reward," a call-it-like-is comment on the war on wage earners: "It's a high-wire act/With the safety net in tatters and a target on your back." And there's a really sharp cover of the old Credence Clearwater anthem "Fortunate Son." Mainly, though, the Haymarket Squares force you to chuckle and contemplate. There's plenty that justifies revolt, but the great causes in "Let's Start a Riot" are ennui and boredom. Even the band name is tongue in cheek. Chicago's Haymarket was the site of a famed 1886 anarchist event, but these guys (Mark Alred, Jayson James, John Luther Norris, Marc Oxborrow, Mark Sunman) are based in Phoenix. True to their nature, their "Gritty City" (which sounds like something from The Pogues) is an anti-love letter to the Valley of the Sun. Or is a for-real love letter? The Haymarket Squares delight in keeping us off-kilter. Call this album witty, wicked, and deceptively weighty. –Rob Weir

February Music Cleanout: McKay, Steep Canyon, Motsenbocker, Covenhoven, Wainwright, Trojano

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Three words to remember: John Griffin McKay. His American Fantasy (Noisetrade) is a small masterpiece that captured me with its opening lines: Don't want to read another novel/About the story of a man/How he loaded up his rifle/And brought peace throughout the land/Don't want a Holy Ghost revival/Made by the greediness of man/It's not about the soul's survival/But the money in your hand. McKay hails from Waco, Texas, but he's having nothing to do with country music clichés, faux morality, or nostrums. His style is acoustic country with occasional rock interludes, but his lyrical sensibility put me in mind of artists such as Ari Hest and David Ramirez, who write songs for adults. McKay calls himself "a broken man writing songs for broken people" and we certainly hear that in quiet dark songs such as "Poison in Our Veins," or in the thick bass/crunchy power chord rock of "Lay Down Your Gun." Yet there's also a sweetness to much of McKay's music–the gentle acoustic backing to "The Pain's Right Here," the ringing harmonics of "More Than Living," and the memorable hooks of "Before I Sleep," the last with the poignant line: If hope is where the heart is/Then I'm a hopeless wanderer. You simply must check out the deliberately paced 6:32 title track, which is heavy on atmospherics and is deliciously enigmatic. I have a feeling we'll be hearing more from this artist.

 

Naming a favorite bluegrass band these days is about as easy as choosing a favorite flavor at a Ben & Jerry's scoop shop, but I'll take a big dish of Steep Canyon Rangers any day of the week. They've got a new CD, On the Radio (Rounder) that exudes why so many of us love this band. There is, first of all, the refreshing honesty of the title track, which admits they're revivalists, not hillbillies from the hollows: I was raised on the sound of the radio/When I need to go back, I turn it up loud/And I'm ready to go. Then there are the polished lead vocals of Woody Platt that are all about the melody, not putting on an affected twang. "Blue Velvet Rain" is simply a great tune and it's made all the more so by Mike Guggino's sizzling mando licks. If you'd prefer a foot-stomper, try "Nobody Knows You," with breakout banjo from Graham Sharp and Nicky Sanders adding fiery fiddle while Charles Humphrey (bass) and Mike Ashworth (box percussion) establish such solid foundations that neither Sharp nor Sanders can knock them down. Or maybe you want some gospel evocations ("Stand and Deliver"). This band is flat-out great.

Tyler Motsenbocker has a new CD about to release and if it's anything like his 2013 EP Rivers and Roads (Tooth & Nail) it will be a cause for celebration. In the interim, Rivers and Roads is yours to download for a tip, and you can sample it first just to make sure it's your cup of tea: http://www.tysonmotsenbocker.com/listen/ Motsenbacker hails from Washington State, but hit the road when his mother died and hiked the coast south to California, where he now resides. Along the way he used his pen to work out some grief, identity issues, and values. Motsenbacker generally works with a resonant acoustic guitar and had a voice that at times has smoothness evocative of a youthful Phil Ochs. This is especially true on "Path in the Weeds." It, like other introspective songs such as "I Still Have to Go," explores the tension between longings for home and the realization that the answers to vaguely defined questions lie elsewhere. There's an impressive amount of stylistic variety on this five-track collection–everything from the crestfallen vocal/sparse piano "Blink Behind the Leaves" to the thick arrangement of "Footfalls," the latter a real crowd pleaser that's the optimistic antidote to melancholy : Open your eyes you're alive/Another fine night near the ocean/Please don't cry, it's alright/You're always going to be my darling.    

It might sound pretentious for a solo artist to have his own band name, but Covenhoven makes a lot of sense when you learn that it's the name of a cabin built deep in the Wyoming woods by Joel Van Horne's grandfather. The Wild and Free pays homage to the big spaces that make us both wistful and humble. Van Horne calls his style "symphonic folk," by which he means the arrangements are lush and haunting. Although he's sometimes compared to Bon Iver, to me the album felt like a folked-down version of Snow Patrol, especially in the ways Van Horne's seamless waves of sound soothe and cleanse. Nothing is rushed, lest something important be lost. On the title track, we find Van Horne walking his inner child down the trails of time; in "Blind Spots" he sings:  With our pains replaced with scars/Like planes mistaken for the stars/We set out hungry like borrowed drifter's appetite–his prescription for seeking things not yet discovered. The Wild and Free put me in mind of an Epicurean perambulating through the woods in pursuit of the wisdom that comes from syncing nature and desire.      

Not My Cuppa Tea

Biology is destiny when it comes to the vocal abilities of anyone born into the extended McGarrigle/Wainwright clan. That said, the appeal of Rufus Wainwright eludes me and his Live at Coventry download didn't change my mind. He has written operas and theater pieces that are, in a nutshell, what I don't like about his music. Live at Coventry finds Wainwright behind the piano—especially the bright keys. There's no doubt he's a superb vocalist, but the current repertoire is cabaret-style garish and overwrought. Wainwright has adoring fans and has added new ones since he has come out as gay, but there's a sense of trying too hard to prove his gay cred—right down to affected feyness. Mostly, though, the songs I sampled–"Poses," "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," and "Foolish Love"–are all-atmosphere-no-substance forgettable, as background piano bar music tends to be. 

Sometimes a new CD arrives by an artist about whom there I some buzz. I listen, shrug, and move on. I've had people whose views I respect tell me about Zak Trojano and I can hear potential, but his CD, Yesterday's Sun (WhistlePig Records), sounded homespun and not in a good way. A few tracks caught my attention, like "Get Me Right," but I'm pretty sure I've heard its central lick in an old country song whose title I can't recall. Another one I liked was the folky "Long Black Vine." For me, though, Trojano's folk songs lack sweetness, his blues lack grit, the vocals are inconsistent, the guitar's bass notes need more contrasting treble, and the production is muddy. 

Rob Weir

Ricki and the Flash: Meryl Can Rock, but...

RICKI AND THE FLASH (2015)

Directed by Jonathan Demme

TriStar Pictures, 101 minutes, PG-13 (drugs and language)

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We’ve finally found something Meryl Streep can’t do: wear heavy mascara. In Ricki and the Flash Streep plays an ageing woman who chucked domesticity and responsible motherhood in pursuit of rock n’ roll glory. We first meet her in an LA bar as Ricki Rendazzo, where she’s holding court as the lead vocalist of The Flash, a cover band the likes of which you’re unlikely to hear at a watering hole near you (Joe Vitale, Rick Rosas, Gabriel Ebert, and Rick Springfield). Can Streep sing rock and roll? Yep—with gusto, power, and husk. Can she play guitar? Yep—she learned how for the role. Does she look like a rocker? Well…. the cornrows are a bit much and her black mascara application would only look Goth on a raccoon, but she mostly pulls off the illusion. Springfield is, of course, a legitimate rocker and he takes all the heavy guitar leads. As Greg, he’s also Ricki’s on-again/off-again lover. He’s nuts about her, but Ricki has commitment issues galore.

Would that the rest of the film was as good as the music. Director Jonathan Demme knows how to film rock (Stop Making Sense, Storefront Hitchcock, three Neil Young films) and he’s a good documentarian (Cousin Bobby, Man from Plains), but his Hollywood career has been uneven and seems to have plateaued since Silence of the Lambs (1992) and Philadelphia (1993). Ricki and the Flash won’t get him to the next level. Once you’re done singing along with some of your favorite hits, what’s left is an overwrought rom-com that is more likely to induce eye rolls than huzzahs.

The film takes a turn for the worse when Ricki, whose real name is Linda, is summoned to Indianapolis to help her ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline) deal with their daughter Julie (Mamie Gummer, Streep’s real-life daughter), who is suicidal after being dumped by her longtime partner. Julie is both a mental and physical wreck prone to angry outbursts as she parades around in PJs, puffy eyes, and rat’s nest hair. What can an absentee mom do to help? Can she reconcile with Julie and her two estranged sons who delight in cataloging her maternal inadequacies? What about Maureen (Audra McDonald) the step-mom who actually raised Linda’s three children? Did I mention that eldest son Daniel (Ben Platt) is engaged to snooty princess Oma (Charlotte Rae), neither of whom want Linda at their wedding? Or that youngest son Josh (Sebastian Stan) is gay? Shouldn’t there be a fourth child who is physically and/or mentally challenged? Can Linda/Ricki ever accept Greg’s love?

The better question to ask is: Do you see anything remotely new or non-clichéd in any of this? Actually, one of the film’s few non-musical highlights is its voyeuristic look inside Pete and Maureen’s Indianapolis McMansion—a cathedral-like monument to what happens when Big Money meets Bad Taste. Demme could have done a major take-down of American materialism and the shallowness of middle-class dreams were he not so busy trying (and failing) to make a bourgeois movie. All that passes for a message in this film is a hackneyed “Gee, some American families are really wacky, but your mom’s still your mom, no matter what.”  

Here are your take-aways: Meryl Streep can rock. Rick Springfield can both rock and act. Kevin Kline must have needed a paycheck. Audra McDonald is a knockout. Jonathan Demme is lost.

Rob Weir

Adama Yalomba: Malian Riffs for Healing and Dancing

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ADAMA YALOMBA

Waati Sera

Studio Mali Recordings

* * * * *

What makes one piece of music memorable and another instantly forgettable?  Very often it's the riff–those repeated phrases and notes that attach themselves to the temporal lobe and won't let go. Few artists understand this as well as Malian superstar Adama Yalomba, whose eleven-track Waati Sera is a textbook on how to lay down memorable riffs. That Yalomba does so with such dexterity and diversity is one of many marvels of his new release. Waati Sera also has its heart in the right place. In his native Bombara the words translate "The Time Has Come" and it's a plea for troubled Mali to put aside its racial, ethnic, and religious divisions and forgive and heal. To do his part, Yalomba sings in Bombara, Fulani, Bobo, Tamasheq, and French and his lyrical themes are in keeping with his upbeat belief that Malians can find their common humanity.

Yolomba's admirable politics and values notwithstanding, most Westerners will first be drawn to the aforementioned riffs. He takes them a step further than most musicians. On his musical pallette they are not just repetitions that seek to be catchy; they are the foundational colors upon which he paints his songs. "Mali Za" ("The People of Mali") uses a balafon-like series of notes—possibly* played on the n'dan, a lute/harp hybrid–that are like a rain that cleanses everything in their path. The rest of the instruments and Yalomba's honey-sweet vocals drip from the riff as if they are merely differently shaped drops from the downpour. By contrast, "Harkass" uses the kora to establish a hypnotic effect that's similar in spirit to an Indian raga, and "Mido Yiduma" ("I Love You") is full-bore boogie with electric guitar and n'goni laying down hard rock hooks. If that's not enough, 'I Gning Yele" ("Open Your Eyes") feels like acid rock merged with dry gourd percussion, and "Baba" combines crunchy power chords with bluesy riffs that could have come straight out of Chi-town. Whatever Yalomba doesn't do instrumentally, he covers with his glorious voice. Check out his tongue-twisting vocals on "Fesse Fesse" ("reflection") and "Plus Jamais" ("Never Again") in which he aims his words with machine-gun staccato like sweep and aim. In other songs—the title track being among them–he's evocative of Michael Jackson in his pop phrasing, his coolness, and his danceable vibes. What an album! It's, in turns, gritty, sweet as sugar, contemplative, and sweaty dance tempo. This is surely an early candidate for the best world beat album of 2016.

Videos from the new release are still being developed but here's a remarkable 10-minute jam from 2007. (Nothing on the new record is over 4:34.) And here's one song from his website.

Rob Weir

* There are no liner notes with the recording or online that provide further information on the instrumentation or guest artists.