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A survey of a few encounters from the last week

Here’s a randomish assortment of terrific new and new-old records I encountered over the last week, while making lists of the most interesting vault discoveries of 2021. (That’s coming soon…)

Honeida Hedfi: Fleuves de l’Ame

I landed on this beguiling calm-inducing suite while scrolling through Apple Music’s “Worldwide” new releases, and it instantly became an obsession. Drawing inspiration from the motion of various rivers, the Tunisian percussionist and composer Honeida Hedfi created pieces that evolve gently over time, with stirring, lyrical melodies flowing into to drum-circle jamming and spacious cinematic atmospheres.

The Paris-based Hedfi began playing music at age 27 after a career in academia; one of her first experiences was with a group exploring the Afro-Arab sufi trance music known as stambeli.  Her compositions, developed over many years, are anchored by those hypnotic rhythms but driven by a striking sense of melody – which travels from epic consonant themes to the wriggling quarter-tone turns common in Tunisian music.

Helmet: Live and Rare

The first seven tracks of this document come from Helmet’s storied, often-bootlegged January 1990 show at CBGB’s – a few months before Strap It On, the band’s debut, was released. That heavily syncopated album became a big deal, opening up a noisy new wing in the house of punk and creating a template followed by scores of less imaginative bands – who maybe got the overall sound but missed the intricacy and brutal intensity of the guitar riffs. The remaining tracks come from a 1993 set at Australia’s Big Day Out festival, and this is the money shot. It shows that in its first three years, Helmet didn’t just write a bunch of increasingly complex songs, it developed a lethal understanding of rhythmic subdivision and a corresponding sense of group interplay. Come for the catharsis, stay for the muso details.

Hamilton de Holanda: Maxixe Samba Groove

Earlier this year, in a rare (and, it should be noted, failed) attempt at creating clickbait, I posted that the Brazilian bandolim player Hamilton de Holanda is the most significant recording artist of the 21st century.

I still believe that. The assertion was based on the quality and diversity of Holanda’s Herculean output – in recent years, he’s created original works for his telepathic quintet, conceptual records that celebrate significant composers (Hermeto Pascaol, et al). and a series of wondrously conversational duo and trio records. (One of these, a torrid live performance with accordionist Mestrinho called Canto da Praya, is up for a Latin Grammy in the Instrumental Album category). Along the way, he’s found time to record earthy, rhythm-forward and improvisation-rich collections like his latest work, Maxixe Samba Groove.

Holanda approaches enduring (and highly specific) Brazilian song and dance forms like choro with a remodeler’s eye and an insurrectionist’s spirit. He stretches out the almost hyperactive melodies so their beauty becomes inescapable, and then expands the pieces further with intense solos. Among the guests who try to keep up with de Holanda’s technical wizardry is jazz saxophonist Chris Potter, whose slaloming run through “Afro Choro” is one wonder among many.

Various Artists: Essiebons Special 1973-1974: Ghana Music Power House

The story of West African music in the 1970s is one of explosive creativity accelerated (and often funded) by tastemaking producers and business people. One of the most important was Dick Essilfie-Bondzie, the Ghanaian producer and founder of the Essiebons label, who documented Rob “Roy” Raindorf, C. K. Mann and other innovators of modern highlife.

The label’s seminal LPs have been reissued several times over the decades; in recent years the Analog Africa label has brought out several compilations of rarities like this one, which is mostly devoted to curiously overlooked  unreleased jams captured during the label’s peak years. Everything here is set to cook for hours on a comfortable all-day simmer: There’s infectious uptempo funk (“Yeaba”) from Mann’s guitar-propelled band Carousel 7, several extended expeditions led by keyboardist Ernest Honny (“Kofi Psych”) and extended pieces that earn their length with spirited horn solos and rhythm breaks. Put this on the next time you need uplift in a hurry.

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