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Product Description
Review
During their 27-year career, Chumbawamba haven’t made three albums in a row that could broadly be put into the same genre.
So it’s a strange sensation to sit down with this album and find that it almost follows on neatly from the two that preceded it. Since they slimmed down to a four-piece (officially augmented for the last two albums by Phil Moody’s accordion) for 2005’s A Singsong and a Scrap, they’ve released three albums with guests including such folk luminaries as the Oysterband and Coope, Boyes and Simpson.
The Oysterband, along with O’Hooley & Tidow and Jon Boden of Bellowhead, appear again on this new album. ABCDEFG takes as its cue the broad church that is music and its power to inspire fear, joy and togetherness and – of course – its employment as a tool of protest.
The bases touched upon in the songs are as educational, humorous and disparate as ever. We get the true story of an East German band being told that they don’t exist (You Don’t Exist); George Melly repelling a would-be robber by reciting Dadaist sound poems (Ratatatay); and the wonderful image of Metallica's frontman being tortured by listening to Chumbawamba at ear-splitting volume (Torturing James Hetfield) among many, many others. Another obvious highlight is Singing Out the Days, which stomps along with gusto and brings to mind the old protest anthems seen on the band’s English Rebel Songs album.
The true standout, though, is Wagner at the Opera, the story of a concentration camp survivor disrupting a Wagner recital in Israel in 2000 by waving a football rattle. The verses tell the story atop a simple backing made from washboard, tin drum, a whistle and the rattle itself, before a simple, repeated one-line chorus tops it all off. It sums up everything about the band – a story that you didn’t know beforehand from a group with a propensity for writing songs that you can’t stop singing. Above all, it’s something different.
The new slimmed-down version of the band still retains the capacity to make you smile, dance, laugh and furrow your brow – sometimes all at the same time. --Stefan Appleby
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CD Description
ABCDEFG, seven letters to hint at what Chumbawamba have spent their adult lives doing; fashioning something weird, funny, eccentric and challenging from a seven-note do-re-mi of possibilities. Or by another name, music.
ABCDEFG is musically eclectic and wide-ranging, from acapella to pop to folk to jazz, a mix-up of ideas to reflect its subject matter. That subject matter includes a gentle hymn to teenage under-the-pillow discovery of music heard on late-night transistor radio; a celebration of the marching songs written by soldiers in the First World War; the story of how people had to battle against State Communist ideology to play their music; a poke at the folk world’s obsession with collection and authenticity; and the story of the concentration camp survivor who disrupted the first playing of Wagner in Israel by swinging a football rattle.
There’s a lot of stuff on this album – both literate (Chumbawamba love to use music to talk about history, politics and philosophy) and funny (Chumbawamba would be the first people to poke holes in the seriousness of this history, politics and philosophy). The stuff on this album is played on a battery of instruments (by the band) and augmented superbly by contributions on various songs from Chopper of Oysterband on cello, Jon Boden of Bellowhead on fiddle and Belinda O’Hooley (ex-Unthanks) on piano.
ABCDEFG is musically eclectic and wide-ranging, from acapella to pop to folk to jazz, a mix-up of ideas to reflect its subject matter. That subject matter includes a gentle hymn to teenage under-the-pillow discovery of music heard on late-night transistor radio; a celebration of the marching songs written by soldiers in the First World War; the story of how people had to battle against State Communist ideology to play their music; a poke at the folk world’s obsession with collection and authenticity; and the story of the concentration camp survivor who disrupted the first playing of Wagner in Israel by swinging a football rattle.
There’s a lot of stuff on this album – both literate (Chumbawamba love to use music to talk about history, politics and philosophy) and funny (Chumbawamba would be the first people to poke holes in the seriousness of this history, politics and philosophy). The stuff on this album is played on a battery of instruments (by the band) and augmented superbly by contributions on various songs from Chopper of Oysterband on cello, Jon Boden of Bellowhead on fiddle and Belinda O’Hooley (ex-Unthanks) on piano.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
A new Chumbawamba album is a very good reason to be cheerful.
Crikey! It hardly seems possible that they've been making
fine music for more than a quarter of a century. They have!
Their new release 'ABCDEFG' is a model of economy and
consumate musicality. Deceptively simple melodies often
support lyrical ideas of shrewd confrontational power.
'Wagner At The Opera' is a fine case in point. A song about
one man's protest with regard to history's short memory.
The almost jolly tune works against the horrific solemnity
of the subject matter in a jarring way. It is this gift for
contrast and matter-of-factness which gives the composition
its extraordinary clout.
The innocent bubbly shuffle of 'Torturing James Hetfield'
also conceals a deeply sinister narrative idea !
'Puccini Said' is a pretty little minature sung beautifully
by Jude Abbott. The half-heard sonic intrusions add depth
and mystery to this beguilingly fragile composition.
'You Don't Exist' is another piece of perfectly judged pathos.
Ray Cooper's plaintive harmonica and Jon Boden's fiddle imbue
the arrangement with an enchantingly timeless quality.
'The Song Collector' sounds as though it was plucked fresh and
still breathing from the local village pub. The plucky brass
arrangement and frisky accordion are an additional delight.
Final track 'Dance, Idiot, Dance' is darkly hillarious!
Seventeen tracks in the bunch and not the
slightest whiff of a bad one amongst them.
What more could you want from an album?!
Highly Recommended.
Crikey! It hardly seems possible that they've been making
fine music for more than a quarter of a century. They have!
Their new release 'ABCDEFG' is a model of economy and
consumate musicality. Deceptively simple melodies often
support lyrical ideas of shrewd confrontational power.
'Wagner At The Opera' is a fine case in point. A song about
one man's protest with regard to history's short memory.
The almost jolly tune works against the horrific solemnity
of the subject matter in a jarring way. It is this gift for
contrast and matter-of-factness which gives the composition
its extraordinary clout.
The innocent bubbly shuffle of 'Torturing James Hetfield'
also conceals a deeply sinister narrative idea !
'Puccini Said' is a pretty little minature sung beautifully
by Jude Abbott. The half-heard sonic intrusions add depth
and mystery to this beguilingly fragile composition.
'You Don't Exist' is another piece of perfectly judged pathos.
Ray Cooper's plaintive harmonica and Jon Boden's fiddle imbue
the arrangement with an enchantingly timeless quality.
'The Song Collector' sounds as though it was plucked fresh and
still breathing from the local village pub. The plucky brass
arrangement and frisky accordion are an additional delight.
Final track 'Dance, Idiot, Dance' is darkly hillarious!
Seventeen tracks in the bunch and not the
slightest whiff of a bad one amongst them.
What more could you want from an album?!
Highly Recommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
What's great about Chumbawumba is that the songs all mean something. They pick out odd subjects and broadcast unlikely heros that we'd otherwise not hear about, like the Jewish POW who went to the Vienna Opera to listen to Wagner and disrupted the event by waving a football rattle in protest of Wagner's Nazi connections. Also as you'd expect some fantastic harmonies.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Saw the Chumbas for the first time a couple of weeks ago - what have I been missing all these years? They had sold out of CDs at the gig - not surprised - so bought on the net. I'll be getting some more.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Same So-So Tunes Indeed
In the early 2000's the delightful Chumbas were heading for oblivion with their anarchic politico-pop rock having worn extremely thin. Read more
Published on 22 Mar 2010 by Whistleblower
Razor sharp
Listening to the acoustic Chumbawamba, with their airy, folky sound, and tunes that sometimes veer towards the cheerfully bouncy, you could be fooled into thinking that the old... Read more
Published on 14 Mar 2010 by Eric Ambleside
A Pleasant Surprise
This CD's been a pleasant surprise for me coming to the band late on, as I'd written them off as "that political band that had a hit with "Tubthumping" then disappeared...". Read more
Published on 3 Mar 2010 by Colin Bathgate
great new album
for anyone unfamiliar with chumbawamba's work over the last decade can i advise starting with the recent live album. though this wouldnt be a bad starting point. Read more
Published on 27 Feb 2010 by Mr. S. Thackray
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