01/02/2010

ABCDEFG - New Album and Tour from Chumbawamba

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.

This, the band’s 17th album, released 1st March, is another concept album (‘concept’ as in ‘idea’. Above all, ideas is what Chumbawamba thrive on), an album full of ideas specifically about music. Music both good and bad, music celebrated and music ridiculed.

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; 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.

UK tour dates are:

Mar 3, 2010  Theatre by the Lake, Keswick 
Mar 4, 2010  Magpies Nest @ Passing Clouds, London
Mar 5, 2010  Corn Exchange, Hertford 
Mar 6, 2010  Lubetkin Theatre, Peterlee
Mar 7, 2010  Assembly Rooms, Derby
Mar 10, 2010  The David Hall, South Petherton
Mar 11, 2010  The Talking Heads, Southampton
Mar 12, 2010  Library Theatre, Sheffield
Mar 13, 2010  Duchess, York
Mar 17, 2010  West End Centre, Aldershot
Mar 18, 2010  Arts Centre, Bridport
Mar 19, 2010  Folk House, Bristol
Mar 20, 2010  Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds
Mar 25, 2010  Trades Club, Hebden Bridge
Mar 26, 2010  The Met, Bury
Mar 27, 2010  Ashcroft Arts Centre, Fareham

www.chumba.com

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