Playlist: Border crossings

Bubamara – Sheikhs of Mallow

I got a happy update this morning, with news that Bubamara has a new album coming out soon. If you’re not familiar, this is the exotic sound of Darlington via the Med. It’s a border-bashing brew of folk traditions from Italy, the Balkans and beyond, and well worth a few minutes of your time. If you’re a fan of the likes of The Ukrainians, Gogol Bordello or even Goran Bregovic, you’ll probably find something to enjoy.

Bubamara are musical magpies deriving inspiration from frontman Ivor Pop and his “have guitar, will travel” approach to touring the world, meeting musicians and jamming along wherever possible. So, while their current home may seem prosaic, the back story is anything but.

Best of all, they’ve a happy knack of taking familiar melodies and reimaging them with a whole new accent. So the back catalogue includes, for example, Fischia il Vento, an Italian anti-fascist anthem built around Katyusha, one of the most enduring songs of the Soviet Union. Sheikhs of Mallow stays closer to home – County Cork, to be precise – only to go on a Levantine tour. As child, I learned the Rakes of Mallow tune with some fairly nonsensical words about a sun shining brightly and dancing the fling at Mallow; rediscovering the same song in dramatically new clothes on 2022’s Hash Houses of the Holy was a rare treat. You can hear more – including, hopefully, cuts from the upcoming new album, at The Schooner in Gateshead on May 9.

Kinaara – Kehnde Ne Naina (She Spoke With Her Eyes)

Another upcoming Bubamara show is on May 17 at Pealie’s Barn, near Northallerton. It’s a mini-festival affair featuring Kinaara, another band unafraid to blur boundaries. In this case, it’s a meeting of British-Indian culture. Singer Satnam Galsian began working on traditional Punjabi music in arrangements that reflected her British upbringing, and drafted in others from the Leeds scene, John Hogg and Simon Henry. Blending classical Indian vocals with electric guitar and jazz drumming, Kinaara brings Punjabi folk tunes to a British audience, while sending traditional Irish melodies and even the hippie ur-text of Nature Boy on an eastward journey.

Driven Serious – Raven’s Call

The summer festival season is rolling around and that means Driven Serious are heading back to what they do best – barnstorming live shows. This is folk fusion on a grand scale: fiddle and cello augmenting a conventional punk-rock sound to create something with symphonic scope.

Songwriter Rob Jones is clearly a man who believes in getting it right: Driven Serious have never been prolific in the studio – two albums, one EP since 2011 – but what gets approved for public consumption is spectacular. The Raven’s Call, the stand-out track from 2022’s Look on These Works, delivers in spades. From the initial arresting fiddle call, echoing across the wilds of Weardale, this track builds and builds before shearing off into a blaze of pagan-inflected dance that veers close to creating folk-rave. And the epic scope of the music is backed up by a similarly imposing video that makes full use of the open skies of the North Pennines, one of England’s lesser-known lumps of loveliness.

On record, it’s impressive, but Driven Serious is first and foremost a live act. If you’re in the area, don’t miss their Folkish Explosion festival at Newcastle’s Cluny on May 4. They’ll be sharing the stage with three other folk-inflected acts, Lost Lot, Ruby Kelly and the Extraordinary Ramble Gamble.

Thanks for reading the seventh of my playlists. If you liked it, give a like and subscribe. If you really liked it, consider buying me a coffee. But, most of all, please consider supporting the artists by buying their music or attending their gigs.

Previous playlists: Folksy flavours / Politics / Stockton Calling / Russia / Aelius / #6