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Baker's Dozen

A Babylonian Tower: Marc Hollander's Favourite Music
David McKenna , June 17th, 2020 08:34

Marc Hollander's Aksak Maboul have released one of the albums of the year and his Crammed Discs label have consistently provided a wide-ranging soundtrack to the globe. He guides David McKenna through favourite albums in this week's Baker's Dozen

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Howlin’ Wolf – Moanin’ In The Moonlight
At the same time I was listening to other stuff as well, rougher things - pop bands like The Animals, blues-based bands like The Yardbirds, The Who, even early Stones. So after listening to all these bands, you realised it was a real thing that could be explored and I started looking for blues records mostly, Delta blues, and shouter blues like Howlin’ Wolf. This Howlin’ Wolf record is really a favourite. Again it’s a sound thing, there’s a strange thing due to his incredible voice in combination with the recording technique of the extremely early 50s. There’s something that makes it totally ghostly.

That led me to more Afro-American music, which wasn’t called that at the time, but you know you walk up the stairs of a genre and you discover the rest - soul music, Stax, Motown. Hip-hop much later. The period I was listening to most hip-hop was in the 80s, De La Soul and bands like that, believe it or not because it’s not so obvious in Aksak Maboul. But you can’t try everything you like, I’m trying to do a lot already!