"If
things had gone according to plan, you wouldn't have the chance
to hear the new record by Another Fine Day . "AFD was intended
to be a one-off," says Tom
Green , the one man in this one-man
band. AFD's 1994 record Life Before Land was simply an experiment,
an attempt to create a gentle melodic style of ambient music 'for
post-club chilling'. Rather, Green found himself with an instant
ambient classic. He soon learned that, as he puts it, "AFD
would not be allowed to die quietly." Various festivals and
record labels continuously asked for more material and live performances,
and AFD tracks were repeatedly used in many compilation CDs. Now,
and finally, Green has responded with Another Fine Day's sophomore
effort, Salvage .
The new album draws
on English folk songs, southeast African music, acid jazz, and
Eno-esque electronic landscapes, without ever settling squarely
on any one of them. This is hardly surprising, given the diversity
of Tom Green's career. He spent years working as a writer, musician,
and producer with such diverse acts as The Orb and the world music
band Baka Beyond; his remixes include songs by alternative rockers
Primitive Radio Gods and Irish folk legend Donal Lunny.
AFD's
signature sound, despite the imaginative use of electronic processing
and computer software, is defined by the ancient African instrument
known in English as the thumb piano. Called mbira in Zimbabwe,
sanza in Cameroon, and kalimba in Uganda (among other names),
this simple set of metal tongues on it's wooden body is considered
sacred in some parts of Africa. In putting together Salvage, Tom
Green resolved to treat the instrument with respect. "I was
determined not to produce a white-boy-plays-traditional-African-music
album," he explains, "or a new age tinkles album, or
yet another big beats world dance album (this time with thumb
pianos)." Instead, he took the term "world music"
literally, treating the thumb piano as an instrument as appropriate
to Celtic or Western dance music as it is to the Shona rituals
of Zimbabwe.
Fittingly,
this decidedly modern album starts with an ancient English song.
"Scarborough Fair" begins with a violin playing the
familiar melody, then comes a sudden rush of kalimbas and what
seems to be a whole carnival of drums, but the melody continues
unruffled and unhurried. Very subtle touches of synthesizer and
the almost classical-sounding violin and piano make this the first
genuinely new arrangement of "Scarborough Fair" since
Simon & Garfunkel returned from London with their memorable
version some thirty years ago.
As if to claim as much musical territory
as possible, Another Fine Day immediately follows with "Twisted
Standards," an excursion into the world of trip hop and acid
jazz. The jazzy piano and organ play melodic fragments that almost
sound familiar, layers of thumb piano swirl around drums and electronic
sounds, and suddenly the question of "what would happen if
Dollar Brand met Portishead?" (just in case anyone was wondering)
has been answered.
The
rest of Salvage is similarly eclectic, yet accessible. "Cutting
Branches" presents a riot of instrumental colors, many of
them apparently acoustic but in reality produced electronically,
in a version of a traditional piece of Shona mbira music. "Lost
in Space" is a tribute to the Harold Budd/Brian Eno sound
of the early 1980's; and "In 5" is an Arabic-flavored
brew of odd meters, throbbing bass, mystical ney flutes, and relentless
Arab and Indian drums. Meanwhile, the kalimbas come and go, sounding
like a patter of rain on one track ("Two Kalimbas And A Synth"),
or serving as a lead melodic instrument over a bed of overlapping
and interlocking rhythms on another (tellingly entitled "Irish
In China").
If
it's hard to say what Salvage is, it's easy to say what it's not.
Tom Green admits to being "disenchanted with the whole world-music-with-beats
scene," and recalls that it was his "dissatisfaction
with most white pop music of the 80's" that led him to start
working with African artists based in London. So while his collaborations
with Baka Beyond, The Orb, Hyperborea, and others may have taken
him into both the world music and pop music scenes, Green points
out that Another Fine Day is neither. "I tried to avoid anything
that could be easily categorized as one type of music rather than
another," he explains. Under the influence of avant-garde
American composers Steve Reich and John Cage, Green began exploring
"found sounds" and experimental sonic processes. "Salvage
is so named because many of the tracks started life completely
different from the way they now sound," he says, "being
effectively 'new' tracks salvaged from old ones that I decided
were just too weird, experimental, plain, and crazy for their
own good."
While
he continues to be a part of what he calls "the Orb planetary
system," Green has pursued many other musical projects. He's
written music for two projects for RTE Television in Ireland,
and will be performing as Another Fine Day at this year's Big
Chill Festival and later in Greece as well. In the six years since
its almost inadvertent beginning, Another Fine Day has become
much more than a "one-off." Tom Green's experiment with
"accessible, rhythmic, tuneful, and surprising" music
has carved a place for itself in a music scene of almost bewildering
diversity. Salvage marks it as a place worth visiting.
