Album Review
World Without Borders
Various
Larrikin Entertainment / Festival Records
[Compay Segundo and Joseito Fernandez sit with their chins propped on their fists in attitudes that are, through a profound coincidence, almost identical.]
Compay Segundo: When I hear of musicians called upon to 'celebrate cultural diversity,' I think of artists in Communist China commissioned to produce glorious portraits of Chairman Mao. Ideology is deadening. You can only hope that the result is not too dreadful.
Joseito Fernandez: I would not call this CD dead.
Compay: I would not call it completely alive either.
Joseito: At least it has that 'variety' you've praised in other albums. Here we have some Tibetan bamboo flute, flamenco, a band called 'Drum Arabic' ... [he reads from the introduction to the booklet] "This compilation grew out of last year's Carnivale, a NSW arts festival which celebrates cultural diversity ... There is no unifying style of content in this selection other than that of diversity itself, which accurately epitomises contemporary Australia. Diverse in background, style and expression ..."
[he starts laughing.]
C: If I hear the word 'diverse' again; especially alongside the word 'culture,' I shall immolate myself.
J: Let's escape people talking about multiculturalism. Let's move to Japan.
C: No, I would have to listen to you play your wretched Morning Masume album ten times a day and that amount of J-pop is too much even for a dead man.
J: You could listen to Violent Onsen Geisha instead.
C: Do we still have that CD of theirs? Shocks Shocks Shocks? We have to review it one day.
J: We do. I can still remember the screaming.
C: This compilation is in need of some screaming. The music stays safely in the middle of the road. The only exceptions are these rap songs from Lebanese Australians which show an admirable amount of spirit, but unhappily the spirit is expressed in a monotonous thump-thump-thump like a piece of equipment in a factory mechanically beating itself. Listen to this man. He has no shade, no dark, no light, no tone in his voice. It's not enough to simply spit out words. The sound itself needs shape and beauty. Angry beauty, tormented beauty, tough-man beauty, whatever beauty, but beauty!
J: Perhaps he would say that he intends to express the ugliness of an urban reality.
C: I don't give a shit what he intends to express if the result is unhuman and irritating.
J: I fancy the slurring violin in 'Mam1 Obata Adarei.'
C: Mm, there are moments throughout the album when you think, "Ah, something interesting is going to happen," but then it -
[he shrugs]
J; It doesn't.
C: No, it sits there for a little while and then it goes away. Nothing ignites. Throw away cultural diversity, sir, and give me some elitist charisma!
