Dom Duff
Album: Babel Pow Wow
Label: Paganab
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.domduff.com

Breton singer songwriter Dom Duff has been working on his marriage of rock 'n' roll and the traditional music of his home territory across five albums now and Babel Pow Wow is unequivocally its most harmonious union. As the fiddle and bass dance and entwine throughout Treizh I can't help harking back to earlier track such as the anthemic Bitter Lands and thinking how well the late lamented Joe Strummer would have received this tribute.

Duff has Strummer's knack of conversational sloganeering down pat - he uses words like rallying cried, toying with their sound and injecting them with building levels of intensity like an old soul man. The language has a rhythm that some will find parallels with in other Celtic music, but there's something warmer, almost Eastern at work here. The title track is a hypnotic psychedelic drone groove flecked with stardust that crashes into Houarn & Lèr, which playfully nods in the direction of All Things Must Pass.

The sprawling spoken word episode on En Tu All O'An Treizh again channels Strummer's famous on-stage raps, but also puts me in mind of Isaac Hayes at his most imperious, before Foeter Breizh raps the whole thing up with an energetic flourish that still finds room for some stunning slide guitar work and breathless percussion.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk