If you think you really know master drummer Ginger Baker, listening to Horses And Trees may change your impression of his music. Produced by Bill Laswell, Horses And Trees sounds more like a 1980s Laswell joint than it does anything by Cream, Blind Faith, Ginger Baker’s Air Force, or his collabs with Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. And that’s more than okay, because the NYC bassist and producer extraordinaire had one of the coolest Rolodexes in the biz in that decade and an ability to conceptualize albums that enabled veteran stars to escape their comfort zones and create fresh work.
Baker was on of a mini creative roll in the ’80s; on top of the excellent Horses And Trees, he played on four tracks on PiL’s Album and cut a rugged, noisy freakout with guitarist Sonny Sharrock and saxophonist Peter Brötzmann on 1987’s No Material, and 1989’s global beatfest Middle Passage. The band Laswell enlisted for Horses And Trees included Bernie Worrell (organ), Naná Vasconcelos (berimbau, cuica, voice, shaker), L. Shankar (violin), Aïyb Dieng (chatan, talking drum, bells), and Nicky Skopelitis (6- and 12-string guitar). You can’t lose with these cats.
On opener “Interlock,” Baker’s drums pack the same massive if somewhat stilted punch that they did on PiL‘s Album. Skopelitis slashes triumphant power chords while Worrell generates thrilling whirs and drones in this oblong, pantheistic funk juggernaut. Foday Musa Suso’s beautiful, wistful dousongonni motif twangs over Baker’s lumbering beats on “Dust To Dust” on a piece that evokes the sundown, melancholy air of Daniel Lanois or Ry Cooder ca. Paris, Texas. The only track here to feature turntablist D.ST. (who famously performed on Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit”), “Satou” is a weird shuffler featuring Vasconcelos scatting on the mic like Urszula Dudziak‘s in restrained scat mode while Sosa’s kalimba and nyanyer (a West African one-stringed fiddle) add tantalizing textures.
“Mountain Time” is a deeply funky percussion orgy boasting the album’s heaviest, most thuggish beats. Here, it’s just Baker wailing on drums, Dieng going to town on talking drum and chatan, and Daniel Ponce tapping the bells. “Makuta”’s a humid, bubbling tune with a strange aura, thanks to Sosa’s kora and nyanyer playing and Vasconcelos’ cuica. The LP peaks on “Uncut,” an uptempo ethno-funk banger that could almost work in a house-music set. Sosa’s dousongonni, Dieng’s talking drum, Ponce’s bata, and L. Shankar’s violin lend exotic timbres. Worrell and Shankar go hard and florid on organ and violin, respectively, elevating the track to an exalted level. Best is “Uncut,” an uptempo ethno-funk banger that could almost work in a house-music set. Sosa’s dousongonni, Dieng’s talking drum, and Ponce’s batá lend exotic timbres while Worrell and Shankar go hard and florid on organ and violin, respectively, elevating the track to an exalted level.
As with most Laswell-produced records, Horses And Trees bears his personality and quirks more than it does Ginger Baker’s. But in this case, that’s a good thing, and Horses And Trees stands as a brilliant anomaly in the master drummer’s catalog. -Buckley Mayfield
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