These earnest, impassioned groups of musicians will generally endeavour to create a new, exciting sound from their joint influences - Balkan brass, ska, dub reggae, French chanson, cumbia, and probably a dash of tango and a blast of Afrobeat - but, ironically, they often end up sounding pretty much alike: they play World Music. 17 Hippies, Balkan Beat Box, Markscheider Kunst, and Amparanoia all fit under this umbrella, and San Francisco’s Rupa & the April Fishes are the latest act to join them.
The band’s first album eXtraOrdinary Rendition was rather spoilt for me by the fact that too many tracks sounded almost like a Stars in Their Eyes tribute to the sublime Lhasa de Sela (who tragically died at the beginning of January). However, the new one, Este Mundo (or This World), has more evidence that they are forging their own identity and, although it’s a more agreeable listening experience, I was still not 100 per cent convinced. But what usually separates the cosmopolitan wheat from the global chaff is how the band cut it live, which brings us to their performance last night at Rich Mix.
From the opening number onwards, lead vocalist and guitarist Rupa Marya came across as a witty, charismatic and likeable individual, chatting unselfconsciously between numbers. She told us about the delights of Istanbul, where the band had just played, and shared her dismay that it’s impossible to get YouTube there due to censorship laws. We learned that she had to break off from being massaged, so urgent was her need to get the basics of the Indian ragga-influenced song “Neruda” down on tape before it disappeared into the ether. And we found out that her life was changed when she first heard the Clash’s “Guns of Brixton”. The band then proceeded to perform an endearingly carnivalesque version of the song, which did what every great cover version should do: rather than try to compete with the original, it shed new light on it.
But what of the rest of the band? Well, they’re a damn fine outfit. The drummer, Aaron Kierbel, actually managed to produce a drum solo worth listening to: two minutes of distant rumbling thunder, building to a crescendo not unlike a train hurtling past. And double bassist, accordionist, cellist and trumpet player all played with great sensitivity and reserve one minute, and kicked up a raucous, almost Pogues-like racket the next.
A highlight of the show was the vaudevillian “L’éléphant”, which Rupa introduced with the words, “It’s always a little terrifying for us to play this song.” And as the band succeeded in creating the musical equivalent of a stampeding elephant - complete with an eerie, dissonant trumpet solo from Ara Anderson which chilled the blood – you could see why.
So yes, Rupa and her merry West Coast collective, with their twisted chansons, warped waltzes, and high-speed ska tunes, proved themselves worthy of a position in the first division of World Music. And they’ve even made me wonder if I was being a little churlish and mean-spirited to suggest that they all sound the same. After all, do all indie and jazz bands sound identical?
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