I'm in such a hurry to tell you about this wonderful record that I'm scared of missing out the rich history, the cultural depth, the musical joy, the serendipitous conjunction of so many happy accidents … but I just want you to know that listening to it is compulsory. Stop reading now .. go and buy it. It says so much more about music and humanity than any review could touch that I should really say no more.
However.
A HAWK AND A HACKSAW are Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost from Albuquerque in New Mexico. The eleven songs on THE WAY THE WIND BLOWS have assistance from Zach Condon of BEIRUT, the BBC award winning gypsy band FANFARE CIOCARLIA, and a dozen more named instrumentalists. The recordings were done in Romania, Chicago and New Mexico.
The flow of music, an unstoppable 38 minutes of delights and treasures, opens with an ethereal shimmer of harness bells and a gust of bottomless euphonium, and ends (in a reprise of the opening theme) with a tragic prayer of hope and a trailing echo of violin and trumpet in a desert wind.
If you have recently spent time in Kreuzberg or Haringey, or sat out under vine shaded streets in Crete, if your family have brought you pop records back from the Lebanon; if you are an old fan of NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL or love the echoing mariachi trumpets of CALEXICO, and spend lost half hours eating olives in smoky cafes with names like Kadas and Sahara; if you have swamped yourself with GOGOL BORDELLO: then this recording will feel like coming home to a perfect resolution of all the disjunctions and feelings of anxiety, loss and alienation that separate such pleasantly exotic fragments.
I'm not suggesting here that THE WAY THE WIND BLOWS is some kind of arty fusion thing that you ought to grow up and appreciate. What I'm saying is that if you live in the contemporary world of ambiguous multi-culturalism and fierce localism, then here is a sane, calm, sensuous and hopeful vision of what music and life can be when good people let their talent loose among fellow citizens of a scary world.
Th CD has beautiful songs and wild dances. The Jewish klezmer violin style of Heather Trost and the French/North African accordion sound of Jeremy Barnes are the unifying elements. A furious collection of brass and traditional instruments colour and shade, and ambient field recordings (remember Cubist Castle anyone?) stimulate the sense of mysterious but welcoming location. The tune "The Sparrow" has a gallop of percussion sounds, searing, passionate violin and pulsating accordion – camp fires, dancing, madness in the air. But it leads into an incantation of voices singing "don’t be afraid the world is your home" before upping the tempo and racing out like Dervish tribesmen clattering pots and poultry behind them. The cultural geography of all this is beautifully complex and interwoven. Jewish, Roma, Christian and Islamic streams are mingled in a supremely humanistic statement that only the spiritual completeness and wise ambiguity of music can achieve. From my own English background I hear an echo of lines I heard in a small village church many many years ago. They were as mysterious then as they are now, but the power of this music brings them back to mind: The apostle Matthew was translated in the 17th Century as having written: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father."
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So. It’s a recording full of hope, optimism, courage and a joy of living in a world that is our own, but which so many of us have come to fear. Our petty obsessions with theological, economic and territorial squabbles, our paranoias and aggressions are transient and destructive. Through music, It seems to say, we can celebrate our common humanity and our delight in each other's gifts. This is one part of the new Cultural Revolution that Eugene Hütz sings of.
I think that's what it's all about. But I think you would be better off listening to it than reading about it. The wonderful Leaf Label are to be congratulated for supporting something so intensely honest, heart-warming and creative. The CD package itself is just another treat for you.
www.ahawkandahacksaw.co.uk
www.theleaflabel.com
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