This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen Magazine #97 (December 2001/January 2002). The magazine is available on newsstands and by subscription.

Recording Reviews:
Here are just a few of the recording reviews in Dirty Linen.

Toni Price
Midnight Pumpkin
Antone's TMG-ANT 0052 (2001)

Austin, Texas, prides itself on a reputation as the live music capital of the world — and just about every musician working in Austin will tell you that Toni Price's live show at the Continental Club on South Congress is one you really have to see. Though she doesn't tour a great deal beyond central Texas, Price's mix of Billie Holiday-style jazz and Bonnie Raitt-cousin blues have gained her a wide following who've been waiting for her fifth album.
Price delivers, turning out a smoldering cover of old Nashville friend Gwil Owen's "Something in the Water" and a many-layered interpretation of Owen's and David Olney's "Measure for Measure." She digs deep into the bittersweet pain of Jerry Williams' "Thank You for the Love," mining the ache but staying away from self-indulgence. Price kicks things into higher gear on songs by Joe Texas and Shelley King, and offers a soulful close on "We Just Couldn't Say Goodbye." Like many of her talented contemporaries, Toni Price has a musical talent that doesn't deserve to be limited to one category. Fans of blues, soul, and late night jazz will all find much to enjoy here. James Burton on electric guitar, Malford Milligan on duet vocals, Champ Hood on electric guitar, and Erik Hokkanen on mandolin are among the players.
— Kerry Dexter (Tallahassee, FL)

Catie Curtis
My Shirt Looks Good On You
Rykodisc RCD 10613 (2001)

Boston folksinger/songwriter Catie Curtis brings a fresh approach to her fourth album. A collaborative effort with fellow band members, this CD has more of an ensemble approach than on her previous recordings. In addition to solo credits, Curtis shares some of the writing with bandmates Andrew Mazzone, Billy Conway, and Jimmy Ryan. The result is every bit as magical as Curtis' previous work. Many of the songs are folk-rock anthems about love. The title track is a celebratory romp, a passionate declaration of punch-drunk infatuation, in which all cares except love and happiness are but circumstantial distractions. Others are more delicate explorations, like the torch song "Elizabeth" or the prepubescent obsessions in "Bicycle Named Heaven."
In addition to exploring feelings of romance and passion, Curtis takes on social issues. In "Love Takes the Best of You," in which she shares the writing credits with Ryan, Curtis sings of the ever-presence of love despite the complexities, misunderstandings, and prejudices of adopting a Cambodian baby: "Now you don't look like me/And baby we don't look like you/But our love is so complete."
She sings a couple of songs from other artists, a new tack for her, including a previously unrecorded song from the late Mark Sandman of Morphine, joined by Morphine's Dana Colley on saxophone. And she adds the Mary Gauthier number "Sugar Cane," about burning the leaves off the sugar cane, a process that makes the cane easier to harvest, but emits toxic smoke.
Meanwhile, her voice is lilting and always expressive, with vocal nuances driven by the songs rather than just by her ability to sing them.
— Stephen Ide (Norton, MA)

Lang Linken
Knorifas
Go Danish Folk Music GO0200 (2000)
Harpens Kraft
Silke
Go Danish Music Production GO 0401 (2001)

Lang Linken, whose members have been performing together since the early 70s, is one of the oldest traditional Danish folk bands. Its most recent recording, Knorifas, is a rich collection of traditional Danish song and dance, covering many different musical styles and played on a wide range of instruments, including fiddle, jew's harp, hurdy-gurdy, flute, piano, melodeon, and accordion. The group uses many different arrangements, with the fiddle, hurdy-gurdy, and accordion each being a featured instrument, and two of the members' daughters join in singing a couple of songs. Lang Linken plays the music as an ongoing, living tradition, and this creativity and enthusiasm shows forth in every track. If you're interested in exploring what Danish folk music is all about, this recording is the place to start. (Liner and song notes are in English, as well as their website.)
Harpens Kraft is an all-instrumental band featuring two members of Lang Linken (Keld Norgaard and Poul Lendal) in its five-piece lineup. The group plays traditional-style dance music and writes much of its material. Featured are the nogleharpe, a fiddle-like instrument, as well as accordion, fiddle, bagpipes, guitars, keyboards, and acoustic bass. The tunes range from quiet majestic pieces to mid- and up-tempo dance numbers, all with very accessible melodies and rhythms. Without liner notes in English, it's hard to decipher some of the information about the group, but the music speaks for itself in no uncertain terms.
— Jim Lee (Simi Valley, CA)

Various artists
Bosavi: Rainforest Music
from Papua New Guinea
Smithsonian Folkways SFW 40487 (2001), 3-CD + booklet

This collection of three CDs offers a selection of field recordings from about 25 years of Steven Feld's work among two generations of the Bosavi (about 2,000 individuals spread throughout a number of villages in the interior of Papua New Guinea). The 80-page booklet that accompanies the CDs contains pictures, background information, and extensive notes on the tracks.
The first CD (and the one that may end up in the CD player longer than the others) is Guitar Bands of the 1990s. The secular string-band tradition is only about 15 years old among the Bosavi, first learned from the hymns of the missionaries. This explains the strong sense of melodic lines and harmonies. The songs use the conventions of western music, such as pauses, instrumental breaks, and so on, but there are traditional Bosavi lyrical themes. The music is quite intriguing, with a dancing and hopping guitar style (sometimes remarkably similar to certain African guitar styles) and lively harmony singing. With 11 different band lineups represented, this is an enchanting disc.
The second CD is titled Sounds and Songs of Everyday Life, and it features the sound of the Bosavi working and singing together. They might be working on clearing a new garden or scraping sago pith. Much of the CD was recorded informally as people went about their day, and it is presented much the way you'd encounter it yourself if you were in the village. A few tracks are more "prepared," such as the male quartet (with seed pod percussion backing) who sat around a tape recorder one afternoon to compose a song. All are vocal pieces, save the percussion of chopping and scraping and working in the background, one track of a bamboo jew's harp, and an intriguing 25-minute soundscape of village life, from early morning to late at night.
Disc three is composed of Sounds and Songs of Ritual and Ceremony. These include funerary laments and other songs and drumming for specific ceremonies, such as the night before a big pig kill. This material comes from the earlier generation of field recordings, and many of these ritual songs are no longer performed. Steven Feld deserves to be recognized for having compiled this work of scholarship, ethnomusicology, and entertainment, which opens up a disappearing traditional culture through its music.
— Ivan Emke (Corner Brook, NF, Canada)

Kirkmount
The Robin, Traditional
Music of Nova Scotia
and Cape Breton
Dorian DOR-93219 (2001), reissue

Kirkmount is Alex, Sam, and Simeon Bigney on harp, fiddle, cello, bodhrán, and bones. The Utah-based trio has roots in a now-abandoned Cape Breton community, whence they take their name. They picked up the love for Cape Breton music from their grandfathers and learned the techniques from folks like Buddy MacMaster and Jerry Holland. The Robin is the re-release of a 1997 CD. At the time of its release, Kirkmount were in some danger of being labeled as a novelty teenage ceilidh band. But for a trio of young folks (13, 15, and 17 at the time of the recording), they show great promise.
The CD has 11 sets of music, with 32 tunes in total (seven of them written by the Bigneys). They also feature traditional sets like "Flowers of Edinburgh/ Pigeon on the Gate/ Jenny's Chickens/ Hughie Shortie's." They do "Atholl Highlanders" as a lament, and "Crossing to Ireland" is played with a strathspey feel. The use of fiddle and cello together lends a classical tone to pieces such as "Wind in the Heather/ Miss Lyle's/Mutt's Favorite." Throughout, there is snap in the strathspeys, lift in the jigs, and power in the reels.
— Ivan Emke (Corner Brook, NF, Canada)

The Rarely Herd
Part of Growing Up
Pinecastle 1103 (2000)
Lou Reid & Carolina
Blue Heartache
Rebel REB-CD-1762 (2000)

One of the most appealing things about bluegrass is its deft combination of tradition and innovation. No band does it better than The Rarely Herd. On their new CD, Part of Growing Up, the Herd takes some fine new songs and crafts fine bluegrass arrangements around them. Three are from the pen of Tim McDonald: a working-man's saga in "Steel Town," a nice old-time gospel number called "Lift These Chains," and "Perfect Fool," a love song. Jeff Weaver of the band contributes a couple of good songs, as well. Listening to "A Sinner's Plea," I'd like to hear the band do more four-part gospel. With singers like Weaver, Jim Stack, and Alan Stack, the Herd is best known as a song band, but theyno slouches on the instrumentals either, as two pieces from banjo player Ned Luberecki show. Rob Ickes joins the band on Dobro.
Lou Reid has long been at the forefront of the most modern trends in bluegrass, as his work with Quicksilver, Ricky Skaggs, IIIrd Tyme Out, and the Seldom Scene shows. Blue Heartache, the fourth release from Reid's band Carolina, fits well within this tradition. Most of the songs are recent compositions from several bluegrass songwriters. The band has a powerful, compact sound augmented by Ronnie Stewart on fiddle. Carolina's instrumentalists are all good without being needlessly self-aggrandizing — the total sound, as it should be, is greater than the sum of its parts. The lead vocals are handled by Reid and the band's banjo player, Gena Britt, who shines on "I Stood and Watched You Go." Her voice also adds a nice texture to the band's already strong harmony singing.
— Bruce E. Baker (Chapel Hill, NC)

Various artists
Under the Moroccan Sky:
Fes Festival of World
Sacred Music, Vol. III
Sounds True STA MM00122D (2001)

The Fes Festival has become one of the premiere venues for world sacred music. Now, it's not that Sufi musicians are clamoring for stage space with your local bar band, but on the world stage, this is fast becoming "the" festival. For one week a year, the remote Moroccan city of Fes opens its doors, and the best of those who enter are captured on these wonderful samplers.
With selections from artists the world over (Algeria, the United Kingdom, Egypt, and Senegal, to name just a few), this one recording gives you a broad overview on the state of sacred music today. Unlike so much of the secular music from these regions, the sacred tends more toward the gradual emotional build rather than the wild and wooly dance rhythms that characterize much (not all) of world music. Don't expect to be bouncing all over your living room to Algeria's Houria Aichi's "El Hachemi." Like much of our planet's sacred music, it follows a circular pattern. Always turning and coming round again, each revolution brings with it a bit more intensity. When the song finally reaches its climax, it is an emotional release — just not the kind that would be found in party music.
What better way to gain some understanding of the wildly varied cultures of the world than through their sacred music? Spending time Under the Moroccan Sky helps us realize that there's a lot more "there" out there than you may realize. There's nothing wrong with feeling a little small once in a while.
— John Bobey (New York, NY)