KASAI ALLSTARSIn the 7th Moon, the Chief Turned Into a Swimming Fish and Ate the Head of His Enemy by Magic(Crammed Discs)
The Kasai Allstars don’t go for the in-the-red amplification Konono No. 1 favors for its likembes, but the instruments nevertheless form the music’s core, their luminously resonant crosscutting pulses buoying all the other action. The percussion complement is more varied than Konono’s, including wooden xylophones that split the difference between marimba and balafon; a massive wooden trapezoidal drum called a lokombe, which resembles a miniature, out-of-proportion parlor door, like something from Alice in Wonderland; and a kind of hand drum, or tam-tam, that can create a rubbery, metallic twang, a bit like a supercharged jaw harp, via an additional vibrating membrane—another source of the rattling buzz the Congolese dig so much.
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Throughout The Door the emphasis is on melody. Eick’s patient, richly detailed solos—he seems to find a new wrinkle with every chorus—are lyrical and memorable, not just abstract explorations of the insides of chords. He’s clearly indebted to better-established Norwegian players like Nils Petter Molvaer and Arve Henriksen for his breathy, malleable tone, and his exquisite phrasing sometimes makes the horn sound uncannily like a human voice—an approach that, despite its delicacy, requires as much strength and power as upper-register shrieking. Eick’s superb band, featuring pianist Jon Balke, electric bassist Audun Erlien, and drummer Audun Kleive, glides, undulates, and even rumbles beneath his extended lines, creating gentle, hazy harmonies that are sometimes haunting, sometimes soothing. The tunes are composed, but they don’t follow the conventional head-solo-head structure, which allows the improvisations to emerge from this background organically.
The 46 tracks collected here, all by Stoneman and his friends and family, speak to his astonishing range and curiosity. He recorded in many configurations—solo, instrumental duos, medium-size groups—and tackled all kinds of idioms, from white gospel to comedic skits to fiddle music to parlor tunes to disaster songs. (His 1925 recording of “The Titanic,” one of his first, was also his most successful.) He was a walking repository of rural folk and religious music, and perhaps also an object lesson in the merits of developing some sort of focus or specialty in the music business: though he could sound credible playing almost anything, he never developed real brilliance in any one style. If he had, this compilation probably wouldn’t need the word “unsung” in its title.
