Afro Celt Sound System "The Source"

There are discoveries being made in the care of people with Alzheimer's which involve cherished music from a person's past being used to unlock memories. The faces of dementia sufferers often light up with an almost ecstatic recognition and re-remembering of places, faces, events and emotions when they don headphones and hear sounds which bring a long-lost past back to life for them.

When I heard about this, I headed to Spotify to create a playlist of sounds that resonate with redolence for each era of my own life, in case I should ever lose my marbles. The Afro Celt Sound System feature very heavily around the mid Nineties. My partner and I and our two kids had moved to Bello, and finally managed a deposit on a block of land here in town on which to put down roots, grow a permaculture garden and build the house we'd dreamt of building for so long.

In the videos of that period, made to capture our growing young family, home and garden for grandparents in the UK, as the wild afternoon storms roll through the Valley, it is often the sounds of the Afro Celts that ring out. We were so enamoured of their music that we drove half way across Australia on a whim one long weekend to see them play at Womadelaide.

Thus there is much anticipation in the air as this new Afro Celt Sound System CD "The Source" wings its way by snail mail from England. Their first studio recording in ten years, it's also a 20th Anniversary release, and the core members of this ACSS incarnation have revisited many of the magical musical connections made in that time. First impression, the cover art is stunning. The colourful mandala-like designs by Jamie Reid go full circle back to their debut, "Volume One: Sound Magic".

The opener is "Calling In The Horses": The sound of an ocean lapping, the West African call and response, Moussa Sissokho's talking drum, Simon Emmerson's feedback guitar and Davy Spillane's wistful Uillean Pipes and Irish whistles. Over a rumbling, earthen bass, N'faly Kouyate's voice reaches the heavens.and before we know it we are into "Beware Soul Brother", with the soulful sweet spot being reached by Rioghnach Connolly's ethereal vocals and flute. She's from Ireland but here sounds almost Indian in the phrasing. By track three, "The Magnificent Seven", Johnny Kalsi's Dhol Foundation rejoin the clan and big, emphatic, celebratory noises are being made.

When the Afro Celtic cross-over experiment was first being formulated at one of Peter Gabriel's Real World gatherings twenty years ago, Shooglenifty were recording next door. Their master musicianship featured on that first release and here they are again in the thick of it on "The Source". The novel Gaellic rap, Highland pipes and whistles of new band member Griogair are a revelation. His jazz bagpipes on "Where Two Rivers Meet" are something else altogether. Female vocal groups from both Scotland (Urar) and West Africa (Les Griottes) and some gorgeous singing by Griogair's fellow Highland Crofter Lucy Doogan add a certain serenity to the proceedings.

On "Child of Wonder" there is some intriguing spoken Scottish word by the young writer Pal, and on several of the thirteen tracks there's some great production / programming / beats by long-time collaborator Mass, who brings a touch of dubstep to the proceedings and has his funky Kick Horns brass section in tow to add to the mix.

 This epic eighty minute album finishes with "Kalsi Breakbeat" - a supercharged Shooglenifty/Afro Celt/Dhol Foundation jam session that will go down a storm with Northern Hemisphere festivals this summer. "The Source" brings us the ACSS sound we've known for twenty years, but the fresh additions take things to a whole new level. As it says on the tin: "A Time for Magic"

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