As musical journeys go, Noise Uprising is a unique voyage of discovery, containing plenty of surprises along the way. Drawing on Michael Denning’s book of the same name, Christopher Trapani’s aim in composing this epic 90-minute song-cycle was to cast new light on the hidden and largely forgotten histories of shellac recordings made during the late 1920s in busy port cities such as Havana, Cairo, New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro. Not only do these early recordings capture a unique sense of time and place but they also give voice to the musical forms and idioms that populated each region, from Argentinian tango and Cuban son to the Tanzanian taarab and Indonesian kroncong.
This rich profusion of styles is colourfully captured by Trapani. In addition to the source recordings, the musical foundations are provided by three members of versatile guitar quartet Zwerm (Toon Callier, Johannes Westendorp, Bruno Nelissen and Kobe Van Cauwenberghe) who, along with Trapani, combine traditional Turkish, Vietnamese and Moroccan instruments alongside standard ones such as banjo, ukulele, steel guitar and zither. An additional layer is provided through unconventional, customised instruments including a homemade omnichord, a Telecaster electric guitar fitted with microtonal frets, and a bowing device called the Gizmotron.
Sometimes the accompaniment is subtle, as in the ambient-sounding, sun-drenched ‘Jakarta (Kroncong)’ and dreamy ‘Honolulu’, or the floating opening to ‘Bombay (Alap)’. At other times, such as in ‘Piraeus II (Rebetika)’ and the dystopian-sounding ‘Smyrna (Manes)’, the quartet’s industrial, mechanised clanging resembles a crazy steampunk contraption from a futuristic sci-fi novel.
As might be expected in a song-cycle, the voice takes centre stage, and Noise Uprising benefits from the contribution of two exceptional singers in Sophia Burgos and Sofia Jernberg. Burgos’s fragile melody in the Skip James-inspired ‘Clarksdale (Blues)’ is weighed down with restrained emotion and loss, before the music shifts effortlessly to ‘Seville (Flamenco)’ featuring the extraordinary vocal prowess of Jernberg. It is testimony to the talents of both singers that they manage to imbue each song with a particular character and identity without ever resorting to ersatz ethnomusicological mannerism or cliché.
The ethnomusicological landscape may have changed radically since the early years of the 20th century, when folk-song collectors would embark on field trips in far-flung regions, but it’s possible to see Trapani as a latter-day, postmodernist Bartók, repurposing his sources to creative and imaginative ends and, in doing so, changing and challenging the musical landscape of his own day.
@Gramophone