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CD Review
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Straight, CD Review >>
Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha
By tony montague
Publish Date: 24-Aug-2006
Re-Covers (World Village)
Re-Covers is the kind of album that seems designed to flummox listeners. Why would Central Asian overtone-singer Albert Kuvezin—whose ultralow voice sounds like the rumbling of a concrete mixer—want to reinterpret such pieces as Santana’s “Black Magic Woman”, Bob Marley’s “Exodus”, and Hank Williams’s “Ramblin’ Man”? After a couple of cuts it becomes clear that the Tuvan artist and his trio, Yat-Kha, are paying musical dues to their early western pop and rock inspirations while having a cross-cultural lark.
Kuvezin’s droning, growling versions of the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards ballad “Play With Fire” and Iron Butterfly’s embarrassingly vapid “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” are clearly not to be taken too seriously. And his rendition of the traditional Scottish ditty “The Wild Mountain Thyme” suggests a lovelorn Highland troll bedevilled with indigestion. It does nothing for the song; the joke is on us.
However, the deep pitch of Kuvezin’s voice and the mix of electric guitar and bass with instruments from Central Asia work well on several other cuts. Led Zeppelin’s bluesy “When the Levee Breaks” and Joy Division’s intense “Love Will Tear Us Apart” gain from a sense of darkness and menace. Likewise, Kuvezin and Yat-Kha’s mesmeric reworking of Captain Beefheart’s “Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles” enhances the song’s psychedelic edginess. Except for one number in Russian and another in Tuvan, Kuvezin sings throughout the album in heavily accented—and sometimes strangely articulated—English. Re-Covers’ oddball blend of world music and pop-rock deserves praise for its adventurous spirit, but the rough charm wears thin after two or three plays. 08/24/06 >> go there
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