Wareika Hill Sounds – No More War[Honest Jon’s/2013]
The ever wonderful Wareika Hill Sounds do it again for Honest Jon’s with four new “grounation furies” – dubbed-out horns and rump-ruffling, hypnotic polyrhythms indebted to Count Ossie’s Nyabinghi practice. ‘No More War’ starts up purposeful and chugging with a kinky tropical dip; the barely legible vocals and muggy dubbing of ‘Free The People’ sounds like it was intercepted from a 1970s radio transmission over the mid-Atlantic. That super-mottled fidelity also makes the woozily urgent ‘Universe In Crisis’ sound arrestingly archaic and ethereal, for the drums and sleepy horn of ‘Chant Rasta’ to push thru with spiritual clarity.
The trombone is more revered in Jamaican music than in any other genre. The horn equivalent to the cello, it has a lovely mellow tone, but in jazz bands and brass bands it’s usually confined to a supporting role. Don Drummond was the first Jamaican to show how melodic the trombone could be as the lead instrument on the ska records he made with the Skatalites in the early Sixties.
Following Drummond’s death in 1969, the new trombone maestro was Rico, whose 1977 album Man From Wareika still holds up well. But since Rico came to live in the UK, the man to call in Jamaica if you want a ‘bone in your band is Calvin ‘Bubbles’ Cameron.
I admit to being apprehensive about his own album on two levels. First, I know Calvin, and it’s always a bit awkward dealing with a record by a friend. Second, he told me it was a dub album, which sent my defences up even higher. As a non-smoker of any kind, I’ve liked the occasional dub 45 but never lasted an album.
From the off, it’s not a dub album as I’ve come to dread them, where the engineer fools around with echo devices. Here, most of the tunes have their own shape and melody, led by a horn section in which trombone usually takes the lead. The dub element comes in occasional interventions by the engineer, who sometimes sends the last note of a phrase whirling into the distance.
Most of the tracks are in the form of a dialogue between the horns and the drums, taking turns to state a phrase that is answered by the other. If that doesn’t seem very complicated, well, it isn’t. But if the sounds are good and the rhythm infectious, sometimes we don’t need more than that. There are a couple of songs with words, one of which has the chant ‘uhuru pujama’ that makes me think of African nightwear, but mostly, it’s an enjoyable soundscape, with that lonesome trombone delivering good vibes from start to end.
1 of 11 – Coconut Head Special 5:14
2 of 11 – Uhuru Pujama 5:18
3 of 11 – Tears In Exile 4:50
4 of 11 – Sweet Incence 4:28
5 of 11 – Jamaica Is Reggae Land 5:25
6 of 11 – Joseph C 4:19
7 of 11 – Queen Of Sheba FMas 4:52
8 of 11 – Africa Freedom March 4:17
9 of 11 – One People Version 6:04
10 of 11 – Moses 4:06
11 of 11 – The Throne 3:46