Around the world with Mahoney

14: AZERBAIJAN

Vagif Mustafa Zadeh - Джазовые композиции (1975)


Mostly Jazz, Baroque & classical music on offer from Azerbaijan. I gotta admit for this choice I was swayed by the jumper/afro/moustache combo of Vagif Mustafa Zadeh. Whilst growing up in the 40s & 50s Jazz was banned in the Soviet Union which then included Azerbaijan, Zadeh would hear Jazz through films & by picking up BBC radio which he would then try to replicate on piano. The record itself is certainly influenced by Dave Brubeck & those early 50s piano based modal jazz records. Considering this came out in the 70s his playing does feel like it comes from another era, though there's a sweet electric organ that supports his work & gives it a nice texture. This was an unremarkable yet pleasant listen, still that Tash puts Barny to shame.
**


FACT Has the first and largest town on stilts to be constructed at sea

Next stop: The Bahamas 

ArubaBahamascomeonprettymamma

i've been listening to a fair bit of 60s mod/freakbeat/garage rock type stuff lately and out of sheer coincidence noticed that an album i listened to yesterday in that genre is from bermuda.

it wasn't amazing but a good little album with a couple of standout tracks and i doubt you will find anything better for bermuda so when the time comes check out the savages - live 'n wild bruv.

Yeah really weird as I was getting albums for the B artists and saw that savages LP then saw minutes later that u had rated it.

Sounds like JP is trying to one up you here mate.

i would never be foolish enough to take on such a stupid challenge.

15: THE BAHAMAS

Exuma - Exuma [1970]


After having a browse at what the Bahamas had to offer it became clear pretty fast that I had to go with Exuma. The artwork jumped out immediately, then when I popped on youtube to see what they sound like I was sold within a few seconds. Exuma is essentially a one man entity, Tony McKay had previously released a couple of obscure singles in the late 60s after moving to New York at a young age & began performing with local musicians in Greenwich Village where he soon got signed to Mercury. The record itself is just so refreshingly eclectic, it's essentially Caribbean flavoured freak-folk music, yet the drum rhythms are really unique, known as Junkanoo in the Bahamas it consists of instruments such as whistles, horns, conch shells and sousaphones. There's a Calypso influence & even a light pinch of psychedelia on a couple of numbers. The songs are well crafted, there's some really playful arrangements (including some sweet backing vocals) & it just feels so fresh throughout. My only criticism is there's a couple of numbers in the middle of the record that don't seem up to par with the rest of the material. That said, this has been one of the highlights of my journey so far & I'll have to check out part II which was released in the same year.

****



FACT There is no income or sales tax for Bahamas residents. Majority of the government revenue comes from tariffs and import fees.



Next up, BAHRAIN.

This project would make for a great podcast. Good luck Karlos.

THIS WENT AS EXPECTED

HAHA i am still (kind of) doing it. I had a mad idea to do proper full length reviews and make a book out of it, then was considering a podcast, and then I couldn’t make my mind up and got the hump with it all.

But listening wise I’ve been still at it. I’ll be back, how dare you doubt me

was really looking forward to see which Alanis album you picked for Canada, too.

Bryan surely. Isn’t he at your festival this year? I’d see him if he ever did one I was at. Canada’s finest, after chris Jericho

Pretty sure he'll be on at the same time as nick lowe. If not, I'll make sure to see whoever is on opposite him and then walk over to hear him do that song he did with rod and sting. ALL FOR ONE AND ALL FOR LOVE, MOTHERFUCKER.

Tune!

Benoit 4 life!

Let us know when you find the Djibouti Twang please. Cheers

16: BAHRAIN

The Mirza Men - Latin Beatles (1969)

First impressions of the Bahrain selection box were not overly promising. A small selection of modern thrash/death metal, an 80s Prog/AOR act by the name of Osiris that sounded like my idea of hell & half a dozen records by their now most famous son, the plastic folk-punker Frank Turner who was born there due to his father being an investment banker in the early 80s. After digging a little deeper I came across this wonderful little oddity by a band called The Mirza Men. On the surface this is nothing special, dig through the shelves of almost any charity shop & you'll come across a plethora of tribute LPs to the Beatles, whether it be James Last providing easy listening versions of their biggest hits or Orchestral versions made presumably for the kind of people that found "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" a little too intense for their ears. This is a Latin flavoured version of the Fab Four's biggest hits, taking in Salsa, Rumba & Batucada influences providing an intensely upbeat & playful LP with wonderful funky percussion that really kicks. What should be yet another disposable take on the Lennon/McCartney songbook becomes a real joyous experience & despite the occasional arrangement that looking back 50 years later would be described as Kitsch (Yesterday in particular) it's the percussion on the likes of "I'm Down" & their punch take on "Eleanor Rigby" that make this record stand out from the other 100s of Beatles covers LP's.

My initial research into The Mirza Men provided very little results. In-fact the only information I could find was from the write-up from the back of the LP. It appears that a man by the name of Mizra moved from Bahrain to study medicine in TCOTU where he "met a pair of bongo's" & the rest is history. The write-up is very tongue-in-cheek, claiming that he "underwent a tough body-building course to develop his already considerable arm & chest muscles so that he could weird abnormally heavy sticks to obtain a special effect on the Timbales". This & the fact that session musicians known for putting out instrumental LPs of Highlife & Hawaiian music are credited made me wonder if there was a very strong possibility that the man named Mirza from Bahrain never actually existed. However after some digging around discogs I came across a man by the name of Mirza Al Sharif who had contributed to a handful of Afro-Cuban LPs in the early 60s who I'm 99% sure is the Mirza on this LP.  

Though even if I am wrong & this is indeed an imaginary Bahraini citizen created as an alter-ego for a handful of British session musicians then it is still a more valid choice than Frank fucking Turner.

***

Fuck, I'd love to see you dance to that