The Independent - UK
Saturday
NOMAD'S LAND;
Azniv Korkejian's upbringing has taken her from Syria to Saudi Arabia
to America, where her soft and distinct vocals have set her apart from
other artists, Andy Gill says
by ANDY GILL
Bedouine, Bedouine
???????????????
Download: Solitary Daughter; Nice And Quiet; Summer Cold; Heart Take Flight
In an era of increasingly synthetic, programmed music, Richmond,
Virginia's Spacebomb Records collective operates with a refreshingly
analogue sensibility. Describing themselves as "a unified crew of
arrangers and musicians, artists, scribes, vibe-gardeners and business
men who feel it takes a village to produce a record", Spacebomb apply
a detailed attention to the mood and meaning of each song, using a
huge complement of local musicians to realise the lush, distinctive
orchestrations devised by arranger Trey Pollard for Matthew E White's
meticulous productions.
Whatever a "vibe gardener" does - perhaps something akin to Bez's
indefinable contribution to Happy Mondays and Black Grape? - I think
every record label ought to have one, given Spacebomb's aesthetic
hit-rate. Certainly, the label has developed a signature sound that's
equally effective for smooth soul outings like White's own albums and
his cover-versions collaboration with Flo Morrissey on Gentlewoman,
Ruby Man, and more folksy, singer-songwriter projects such as Natalie
Prass's eponymous debut album.
It's the latter category into which Azniv Korkejian's equally sublime
debut falls. Born in Aleppo of Armenian descent, Korkejian has every
right to the sobriquet Bedouine, her nomadic upbringing having taken
her from Syria to Saudi Arabia to America, where she eventually
settled in LA as a sound-editor - skills employed here in the montage
of street-noises at the end of "Summer Cold", a re-creation of the
Syrian streets of her youth. But it's her voice that immediately grabs
you, a warm, grounded delivery oozing devotional calm on the opener
"Nice And Quiet", where lines like "When I'm on my way, I keep my feet
nice and quiet for you" have the enigmatic charm of hermetic tribal
spirituality. There are obvious affinities with the likes of Norah
Jones and Katie Melua in Bedouine's tone and timbre, anchored here by
loping bass and lightly brushed with tints of oboe and strings, before
the crisp restraint of Smokey Hormel's guitar break brings the song
home.
It's a simply lovely start to the album, reinforced by the languid
"soon-come" message of "One Of These Days", a plea for patience as
regards both love and money. Its anti-materialist tone is taken up
later in "Heart Take Flight", where fingerpicked acoustic guitar and
what sounds like the crystalline high tones of glass harmonica
accompany her ruminations. "Any more than what I have would be too
much for me to feel free," she muses, an attitude reflected elsewhere
in the nomadic instincts and drifting sensibility of "You Kill Me" and
the repressive dread afflicting "Mind's Eye" ("I'm trapped and I can't
find my way out of graven doubt").
The centrepiece of the album, however, is the impressive "Solitary
Daughter", an affirmation of self-sufficiency and rejection of worldly
distractions which in both its poetic locutions and vocal delivery
seems to channel Laura Marling. "I'm not an island, I'm a body of
water/Jewelled in the evening, a solitary daughter," sings Bedouine
over a delicate web of fingerpicking, strings and occasional distant,
yearning horn, adding warily, "If picked at by noon, by midnight I'm
mined". It's the standout track on an album heralding a talent as
intriguingly fully-formed and distinctive, in its own way, as Marling,
Mitchell and Bush.
This review appeared in yesterday's Independent Daily Edition