Star Feminine Band
Star Feminine Band
(Born Bad Records)
★★★★

THE wonderfully uplifting Star Feminine Band is the product of a 2016 radio station call out inviting girls in the West African nation of Benin to take part in a series of free music workshops.

After intense training and rehearsals, today the group of hugely talented seven girls, aged between 10 and 17, are well known nationally — and their terrific debut record should mean they receive international acclaim too.

Singing in French and local languages and playing a mix of musical styles including garage rock, psychedelia and, apparently, Ghanaian Highlife and Congolese Rumba, it’s a joyous set.

You don’t need to understand the words to understand Femme Africaine is a call to arms for African women, while Peba calls on their leaders to recognise the importance of educating girls.

An album to get the party started.

Keith Jarrett
Budapest Concert
(ECM)
★★★★

THE recent news US jazz pianist Keith Jarrett suffered two strokes in 2018, leaving him partially paralysed and only able to play with his right hand, shocked the jazz world. It is unlikely he will ever play live again.

All of which makes the two-disc Budapest Concert, recorded at the Bela Bartok National Concert Hall in 2016, incredibly special. Jarrett has said he considers the set his “gold standard” in terms of judging his recent work.

As usual his performance is almost entirely improvised, beginning with a 15-minute knotty, frantic piece. In contrast, the sublime Part II and Part VII are searching and vulnerable ballads of stunning beauty.

The concert ends with a wonderfully rhythmic bluesy stomp and an encore of two American classic songs — a melancholic It’s A Lonesome Old Town and Answer Me My Love.
Masterful.

Alex Maas
Luca
(Basin Rock)
★★★

LUCA is the debut solo album from Austin, Texas-based Alex Maas, the vocalist and bassist from psychedelic rock outfit The Black Angels.

It’s an intriguing listen, with the lo-fi, almost tinny, production giving the whole set a spooky vibe. Tracks like Should Have Been and the parenthood-inspired 500 Dreams have a strong late-60s rock feel, the music’s grandiose chamber folk bringing to mind artists like Jefferson Airplane and The Byrds.

Elsewhere Maas creates Nick Drake-levels of intimacy on the vulnerable Special.

Native American culture apparently underpins much of the record — both lyrically and musically. Acoustic closer The City addresses hundreds of years of conquest (“Oh the many burning homes, the women crying/ Now that’s a city that’s ripe for the taking”), while the mantra-repeating American Conquest, which deals with mall shootings in the US, packs a real punch.