Na Mara
Album: Navajos & Pirates
Label: Rounder
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.na-mara.com

If I'm completely honest, Na Mara are one of those bands that I had come across on an old Fatea Showcase Session, enjoyed the track included, but had never got around to following them up. That was until September last year when, finding myself at a loose end one Friday night in Ipswich, I made the short drive over to Hadleigh to visit the Hadleigh Folk Club. The headline act that night were Vicki Swan & Jonny Dyer but Na Mara were also on the bill. Well, they put on a great performance, I came away with a copy of their 2010 Album, The Bite, and now here I am reviewing their latest offering

If you are not familiar with Na Mara, Paul McNamara and Rob Garcia are based in St Albans although Paul is originally from Teeside and Rob is of Spanish Descent, his parents having arrived in The UK as child refugees from the Spanish Civil War.

One of the duo's specific projects has been to bring traditional French songs to a wider audience by translating them into English, they have also been drawing on Rob's heritage by including songs & tunes from the Spanish regions of Galicia and Asturias in their set.

Given this, it is no surprise that Navajos & Pirates is a mix of original songs written by Paul and the French, Galician and Asturian songs and tunes that they have worked so hard on.

Not only is Navajos & Pirates the album title, it is also the opening track. A driving Paul McNamara composition about anti Nazism. The title refers to, & the song tells the story of, the Edelweiß Piraten, a group of young people in 1930s Germany who stood up against Nazism, some of whom paid for that stand with their lives.

On this album. Paul's storytelling really is top notch, whether it be a tale of modern slavery in Garden Of England, story of the 1937 evacuation of Basque children from Bilbao in The Silver Duro or the cautionary tale of the pirate Captain John Avery in the song of the same name.

This album, however, is not just about the original songs. As with Na Mara's previous releases there are also translations of traditional French songs with L'amant De Nantes becoming The Lover From Nantes, Quand Je Menais Mes Chevaux Boire transforming into When I Took My Horse To Water, La Fille De Parmi Ces Bois changing into The Girl Who Lived In The Woods and A Bordeaux Il Vient D'Arriver becoming The Three Bonny Ships. To me, the trick of a good translation is not to go for a literal one but one that works as a song in the new language and keeps to the spirit and story of the original. With these re workings Rob & Paul have certainly produced new versions of these songs that work on all counts.

Finally there are the instrumental tracks, two of which are sets of tunes from Galicia & Asturias. Spain is not necessarily a country that you would associate with Bagpipes but they are an instrument that features large in the music of those Spanish regions. The first set consists of three tunes; one Galician Muiñeira, one Asturian Muiñeira and one dance tune written by Asturian band Gatos Del Fornu. All three started out as Bagpipe tunes but have been arranged for the Octave Mandala. Two more Galician Muiñeiras are given the same treatment later in the CD. Brittany also gets a look in with a set consisting of three traditional Breton tunes, one slow air, one March & a Ton-bale, all of which were collected by Edward Huws-Jones. Finally there is also a set of two new tunes composed by Rob Garcia, one being a traditional French Schottishe & the other a Galician Muiñeira.

Navajos & Pirates is an album with a good mix of original compositions that tell their stories extremely well, new versions of traditional French Songs that will surely find a whole new audience and tune sets that give the recording a distinctly pan European feel. Standout tracks for me are the title track & the powerful, if somewhat harrowing, Garden Of England. If you already own Na Mara's previous albums then you will know the quality of what is contained on Navajos & Pirates, if not then is release is a great starting point. An album that I thoroughly recommend

David Chamberlain