THE SOUNDTRACK TO THE REVOLUTION
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Rhythm Tree (March Hare music) 2005
In 1993 Martin Craddick and his wife Sue released an album featuring the Baka Pygmy Tribe from Cameroon. A novel idea. Who would have thought that 12 years on they would still be at it and the formula would still be as fresh and unique as it was back then. With this album they come back full circle to their origins, including once again contributions from the Baka themselves, who have picked up a musical trick or two since that first album. The main band have also developed and now features members from UK, Cameroon, France, Sierra Leone and Senegal, all combining to make an amazing sonic tapestry. Unlike many ‘Afro-Celt’ fusion type bands, the whole thing is seamless with all styles blending to create something completely new. The best thing about the album though is that the feel good vibes that the band exude from every pore somehow manage to find themselves captured on CD and are released through the speakers. You can almost hear Sue and Martin Smiling at each other.
For 15 years now, Martin Craddick and co have been bringing us the spirit of the Baka pygmy tribe of Cameroon, throwing the rhythms from those far off forests into the melting pot to create the finest Afro-Celtic fusion. After ploughing the proceeds from the Baka Beyond albums back into the Baka community, and taking a new guitar back with him every time he and his wife Sue visits them, this album sees the Baka themselves picking up instruments and sharing with us genuine ‘jungle rock’. Recorded on a solar powered laptop this is a real treat, with just guitar, bass, mandolin, percussion and lots of backing vocals creating what must be one of the most original orchestras in the world.
Bender (TV Records) 2005.
Wow, a new album by Bender! That was what was going through the brain when we found this in Spillers. The excitement was so intense we did not even check to see if it was THE Bender. Needless to say, it isn’t. This is a much more laid back affair, in fact if it were on vinyl we would check to see it is playing at the right speed. It is sort of art house stuff that would go well as a sound track to a film like Eraserhead. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it an acquired taste, and even if you do have a taste for this sort of stuff, there is only so much of it you can take, it is not the sort of thing you would put on first thing in the morning, unless you were planning a particularly depressing day.
Homeland Insecurity (SCRAP Records) 2004
The disc opens with the sound of a police siren then bursts into a riff so fast it sounds like the guitar is on fire and the guitarist is trying to put it out with his fingers. It is difficult to work out what the vocalist is ‘singing’ about, but it is enough to know the song is called ‘Under the Heels of Jackbooted Thugs’. Treason, suicide, American nightmares, racism, greed and the police are among the other topics that are touched upon as we hurtle through 15 tracks of Hardcore Anarcho shouty punk from New Haven, Connecticut, US. ‘Rumour Mill’ is something to do with lies we think, but more importantly sees some half decent guitar licks emerge over the top of the riff fest, before diving back into the background until ‘Clown Suit’, which we think is about the NYPD. Its hard to work out what the lyrics are about at the best of times, but when you do pick up the odd word you get the impression that if you sat down and read the lyrics they might be quite profound. Its not an album you want to sit down to listen to though, its an album to mosh to, or possibly throw Molotov cocktails to. We will certainly be keeping an eye out for UK gigs
The Bureau (WEA) 2005.
Through a streak of bad luck this album has over the years taken on legendary status as a ‘lost treasure’. Formed by 7 of the original members of Dexy’s Midnight Runners in 1980, this is classic soul rebel stuff that we here at Iguanville think knocks spots of the commercial incarnations of Dexy’s. For some reason they never really took off in the UK, often finding themselves competing against Dexy’s for press coverage. The first single ‘Only For Sheep’ was a hit in Australia at the time but the band never managed to tour there to capitalise on that popularity. The did two UK tours and toured America with The Pretenders but ended up dissolving due to skintness in 1981. This album was criminally only ever released in Canada and Australia in 1981, until this repackaging in 2005.
We have here the album in its adrenalin fuelled scooter boy entirety, plus 4 bonus tracks, a live disc recorded live at the Forum, and a video of ‘Only For Sheep’ snuck in for good measure. A lot of 80’s music sounds dated now, but this is as fresh as ever and captures those days when punks and mods briefly hung out together and turned out up-tempo soul from the streets.
The Poison (Visible Noise) 2005
We don’t listen to an awful lot of heavy metal here at Iguana HQ these days, not because we don’t like it, but because we aint really come across any new stuff that we like for a long time. This may be because we aint bothered looking for any, but now that there is a teenager hanging around HQ we find we are being exposed to more and more of it. We were stopped in our tracks recently just before shouting, “turn that bloody noise off!” by Bridgend’s Bullet For My Valentine. This is pure metal with a bit of intelligence. Those teenage years spent worshipping the likes of Metallica, Testament, and the Almighty Iron Maiden show through, this aint for the faint hearted, it’s no holds barred, balls to the wall metal for muthas.
