All system go

Fans of those multicultural, multi-talented trailblazers called The Afro-Celt Sound System will be glad to hear of the band’s return to our shores for their brand new live show. People who’ve seen them already know what’s in store – a two-hour high energy music and dance extravaganza that seriously blasts the cobwebs from the aul’ grey matter.

The logistics of trying to record and tour is no meant feat for the Afro-Celts, who comprise a large bunch of independent and virtuoso musicians from Ireland, Britain and Africa.

“Mixing musical genres and working with people of different cultural backgrounds presents huge challenges,” says Iarla O’Lionaird, singer and songwriter. “We’ve had to overcome all kinds of misunderstandings because of linguistic and cultural differences. We’ve had fights in the past, mostly under the intense pressure of touring. We’ve done everything we can in recent years to circumvent that, and we’ve been very successful. We run a business where you have to plan very carefully. A worldwide tour of fifteen people is an expensive undertaking, and you must strategise for proper, fair and appropriate measures to communicate to everybody. For example, when we’ve been rehearsing recently we’ve had interpreters for the African members of the band. Everything is done to maximise the positive and to try and avoid problems that need not happen.

Meanwhile, the Afro-Celt musical mission continues.

“We’re on the hunt for different musical styles,” says Iarla, “and on Further In Time, our current album, one of the tasks we set ourselves was to throw down the gauntlet on modern African music and make sure that the album had a very strong component of what we would call completely credible 21st century African music, rather than always leaning on the Celtic tunes to give the edge to the album. I think the most inventive tracks on this album are actually African tracks like ‘Shadowman’ and ‘Further in Time’, where we got our traditional singers to do rap, for example.

“The live show is incredibly enhanced by our change of focus. Instead of the Africans in the band doing their traditional bit only, they’re doing that and also they’re doing this explosive, modern, cutting edge 20 minutes of their own.”

As on stage, so on record, it seems.

“On this album there’s less Irish influence,” says Iarla. “We thought that for the last album the African side wasn’t getting a fair whack, so we decided this time we’d write a few really strong Irish tracks and leave it out of the rest, and see instead if we could create a new genre of African music with a strong modern dance focus. In the live show there’s still a whole weight of Irish influences but there’s also a new weight of African influences. I think there was a danger that we were becoming associated with souped-up rocket-propelled jigs and reels, and we’re not interested in that, so it’s good to have addressed the balance.”

Having heard the album and experienced the Afro-Celts live several times before, this is one gig I definitely won’t miss. Strongly recommended to lovers of dance music looking for some live band performance instead of a DJ for a change.

Further In Time is out now on Virgin