New Year's version (Auld-U Syne?)
Ghetto Priest with Skip McDonald & Adrian Sherwood – Auld Lang Syne c/w The Slave's LamentNot On Label (Graham Fagen Self-released)CD Single, UK, Feb 11, 2005
This New Year's Eve share might be too somber for a party night... but I'm hoping I'm still on good paper after the Louie Vega Xmas disco records and that you'll forgive me if this is less aimed for the holiday dancefloor.
I'm no expert, but it seems that Scottish artist Graham Fagen has produced a number of works over the years exploring the history of connections between Scotland and Jamaica (especially via the slave trade). He has collaborated with musicians to produce music and sounds to accompany his installations and visuals, several times working with members of the On-U Sound family. For a 2005 exhibit called Clean Hands Pure Heart, Fagen asked that team to produce a recording that combined the New Year's standard Auld Lang Syne with another song, The Slave's Lament, also written by Scotland's national poet Robert Burns. (Unless it wasn't... I didn't read this closely, but even though the song has long been credited to him, I saw that some experts think it's likely that he didn't actually wrote the lyrics.) I believe a film made by Fagen of the musicians recording played in the gallery along with some related art, including prints by Fagen of the ships that Burns at one point had booked himself onto, intending to head to Jamaica for work as a bookkeeper on a plantation.
Nancy, Bell, Roselle (The ships that Robert Burns booked passages to Jamaica on)
The music today is from a rare CD commissioned by the arts center in Glasgow that hosted the hosted the exhibit where these were given away. Ghetto Priest sings over music played by Skip McDonald (aka Little Axe) and production from McDonald and Adrian Sherwood. Ghetto Priest is typically known as a reggae singer, but he's been a genre blender (like many in the On-U crowd): he's a member of Asian Dub Foundation these days and I've really enjoyed his recent recordings for the Ramrock label.
His talent is clear here as well, but this CD is a strange one- a surreal rendition of Auld Lang Syne leads into atmospheric, sparse, programmed drums, Skip McDonalds moody guitar work, and dub effects from Sherwood. The second mix cuts the opening and closing Auld Lang Syne sections, while the third is a dub mix. The names in parenthesis for each track are the three ships that, despite his association with abolitionism, nearly took the poet in 1786 to work for slave owners in JA had his literary career not taken off. The messiness of race (and racism) in the UK is all over this, strange, pained and beautiful.
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In 2015, Fagen, Sherwood, Ghetto Priest and McDonald revisited The Slave's Lament for a new exhibit. This time they were joined by the brilliant (and much missed) drummer Style Scott (Roots Radics/Dub Syndicate) and the Scottish Ensamble, performing a moving string arrangement created for this recording by composer Sally Beamish. Again, Fagen created a video of the performance that was then presented on screens at his exhibits. I enjoy the CD from 2005 show above, but this was something special when I finally heard it. It's an over 14 minute long rendition of The Slave's Lament, that gently moves between reggae, Scottish, and classical sounds.
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We'll share a pot of the ital stew for FLAC (download zip file)
We'll share a lick of the high grade for MP3 (stream or download)
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There was actually a 10" single produced for this exhibit pulling from this same 2015 sessions as the video, but this version is much longer (from what the internet tells me). I'd love to hear that record, but have only seen it online for prices beyond my reach. I got excited while I was preparing this post and bumped into a Scottish museum's website that was still selling copies from their online gift shop! But when the cost of shipping quadrupled the price I was about to pay, I had to think twice. So if anyone is headed to Scotland anytime soon and wants to pick one up in person for me, let me know! -Oops, just looked again and it was actually a museum in London that still has these to sell... So now do I have any takers for the courier gig? (And if anyone out there has a copy they're willing to record and share, please do!)
Happy new year, all. I hope 2024 will bring us all the peace we deserve (and that the world desperately needs). Enjoy.
I was quite excited when I saw the title of your post, as I thought you might have acquired that rare 10". I'm sure that a few members of the Starship Africa forum have it. I recently posted a discussion on the ESWA board (where I first encountered your blog) about "crowdfunding" the purchase of rare and pricey records.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like one could say that much of reggae music (as well as the history of Rastafarianism and the longing for a Black Star Liner to return those who were "carried away in captivity" from their African homeland) is a "strange, pained and beautiful" reflection of "the messiness of race (and racism)," colonialism, and the traumas endured by victims of the Transatlantic slave trade. The same could be said for blues and gospel, two other musical forms created by descendents of the enslaved. Like you, I'm no expert in these subjects.
The expansion of the On-Universe to incorporate folk music (of the UK, US, Australia, and Africa) is also quite interesting. I confess that I haven't listened too closely to the Ian King or Dave Dobbyn albums, but as you point out there are several good reasons why Skip, Adrian, Style Scott and Ghetto Priest would want to collaborate with Graham Fagen. Thank you again for sharing the music, your thoughts, and your description of this multimedia project. I'm excited to finally hear The Slave's Lament, and to share this cup of kindness for the sake of Auld Lang Syne.
thank you. i had no idea this existed, and i really can't imagine what it will sound like, except trusting that it's good and interesting.
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