Some Mississippi Sunday Morning
by Parchman Prison Prayer
(Glitterbeat, CD, DL, LP)
glitterbeat.com
★★★★★
The name and address – ‘Parchman Farm, Sunflower County’ – sounds pleasant. The reality is very different. Parchman, or to give it its official name, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, is notorious, even within the larger US penal system. Since its foundation in the early 20th century, Parchman has been a place of violence, a manifestation of an overwhelmingly racist structure. This extraordinarily raw album is a welcome addition to campaigns to hold this system to account. (It comes months after the rappers Jay-Z and Yo Gotti’s excoriating documentary, Exposing Parchman.) The album’s yearning hymns also remind us of the humanity behind the crime, of the need for redemption of some kind.
Some Mississippi Sunday Morning is a recording of a prison gospel service in which the music is performed by prisoners themselves. Album profits will go to the state’s chaplaincy services. We are not told anything about the men who feature on this album beyond names and ages. We do know that it is an inter-racial service, organized specially. Because of the unusualness of the situation, Ian ‘Tinariwen’ Brennan’s recording was done in a single take, something that contributes to the dense emotion of the album. The hymns, some acapella, ad-libbed in true gospel style, speak of breaking chains, of salvation, of freedom and forgiveness. Only one hymn, ‘Solve my Need’, has any technical input: the singer’s deep voice intones that over and over, in a live loop, his voice rolling like a weighty prayer. By the time the impromptu ensemble hymn, ‘Lay my Burden Down’, rings out, the resonance that runs from slavery to continuing Black oppression sounds clearly.
One Drop of Kindness
by Yungchen Lhamo
(Real World, CD, DL, LP)
yungchenlhamo.com
★★★★✩
If there’s an element of nominative determinism about Yungchen Lhamo’s name (part of it means ‘goddess of song’ in Tibetan), then that’s all to the good. One Drop of Kindness, the Tibetan singer/composer’s latest album, shimmers with a quality that’s hard to match.
Fleeing her homeland in 1989, Lhamo made her way to Australia, before heading to New York, where she has spent the past two decades. Along the way, her music reached the ears of Peter Gabriel and the team at Real World: the rest is history.
Lhamo, a musician of exquisite voice, became known for settings of Tibetan mantras, and One Drop continues the theme. For example, the opener, ‘Sound Healing’ is built upon the mantra of the medicine Buddha, Sangye Menla. What changes between each of Lhamo’s albums, however, is the framing of her pieces, which are sometimes mantra songs, and at other times songs inspired by Buddhist texts. Musical frames differ too, and on this album she’s joined by musicians and instruments from around the world. Osher Levi’s didgeridoo imbues ‘Sound Healing’ with a deep, reverberating rhythm, while Lhamo’s co-producer, the multi-instrumentalist John Alevizakis, adds hovering tones to create an expansive atmosphere.
As ever, the starring role is occupied by Lhamo’s supple vocals, which swoop from a fluting soprano to a gravelly lower range. There is a deep feeling of compassion to the album, which is enacted via Lhamo’s off-stage deeds. One Drop takes its name from Lhamo’s humanitarian foundation for working with distressed communities both is the US and elsewhere. The transformative power of song is the thing here.
