REVIEW 'All Alone'
Half of the Australian based duo The Hottentots, Carl Cleves is a veritable world traveler. One part of him is here, the other everywhere.

After four CDs with the Hottentots his debut 2007 release "All Alone" bears this out in a myriad of subtle ways. One can talk about the multicultural influences, the pensive quality of the title track which owes a debt to Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso, the homage to Sudanese oud player Abdel Gadir Salim "The Rose Of Kordofan" or the Caribbean, African and Brazilian rhythms that flow to the dictates of some of the songs, as these are natural things that come from Carl's travels.

I suppose you could call this release acoustic folk with touches of blues, country and jazz, but that doesn't really describe it either. Carl never ever tries to sound like anybody else. He has managed to absorb these other influences while retaining his own muse. As a result he is an uncompromising artist with a personal vision that is both whimsical and wise and yet he's not averse to injecting a bit of hokey fun into the proceedings. His melodies are memorable and moving. The supporting cast, including the remaining Hottentot Parissa Bouas on vocals, provides subtle and occasionally exuberant colourings on oud, viola, violin, electric guitar, saxes, trumpet, bass and percussion.

It would be remiss to omit mention of Carl's acoustic guitar playing that provides eloquent commentary in all 11 songs. It is utterly captivating and pregnant with unexpected nuance. In fact Carl is the only acoustic guitarist in Australia whose work I can detect after two notes ... his sound is that singular. Yet he never grandstands. To me that speaks volumes.

The songs themselves seem to be observations from some unwritten autobiography and are sung with the complete lack of pretense that is the singer's trademark. "All Alone" was awarded Best Lyrics 2007 by the Australian songwriters Association, which I hope gives some impetus to this excellent album. I know that Carl doesn't really like to consider himself as a world music artist, but the real litmus test is to blot out the meaning of the lyrics in one's mind as if they were in a foreign language and listen to the textures, rhythms and melodies. Well ... "All Alone" passes with flying colours.

Richard Jasiutowicz - Diaspora World Beat

REVIEW 'Tarab, travels with my guitar'
Moroccan singer Asmaa Lmnawar says that, Tarab "is a higher state that both the listener and the artist reach to". For her "it is when a singer provokes the listener to the point where her or his body is tingling, to where the listener even starts swearing". With this in mind I listened to the 2008 CD release from Carl Cleves: "Tarab/ Travels with my guitar", in anticipation of the tingle, though perhaps not the swearing. Cleves' quest for Tarab is that place "where music and poetry bestow true bliss upon the lucky one".

This is a lush CD. It is an amazingly rich tapestry of sound, an aural landscape that surges from Zimbabwe to Brazil, originating from Belgium and nestling in Byron Bay. It is instrumentally and lyrically diverse, borrowing heavily from the cultures of Africa and South America, expertly played and beautifully recorded. Cleves has distinguished himself with his compositions, having won Music Oz and Australian Songwriters Association awards, and this ability is reflected in the ten tracks on the CD (eight songs and two instrumentals).

For the most part, Cleves' lyrics are extremely well crafted and bursting with imagery: "From the Valley of the Moon to Corioco/Through the might magic jungle" (from "To Corioco"), "With the sound of the railway tracks/Only a tambourine is missing" (from "The Minas Train"), and "Xango, Exu, Yemanja/Were the mighty Orixa/Who travelled from Nigeria/To Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica" (from Party at my house"). We have an abundance of delicious syllables, words and phrases, highly evocative and redolent with the magic and mystery of far away places. "Trem Mineiro" is sung in Portuguese, and there is a dash of French in "Zimbabwe Zimbabwe" which add their own spices to this dish. Perversely, though, the strength of "The fire of liberty's blazing/In township and mines" is diminished by the somewhat pedestrian "I donÕt know why/My friend had to die" (from "Penkele") and the almost unbearably kitsch "TashiÕs song". The latter, though, is a bit of fun with his daughter, so I guess we can forgive that.

As alluded to earlier, the musicianship on this CD is first class, and songs are arranged with a skill that preserves the heritage underpinning each track, giving each its own particular flavour. They are cleverly layered, dynamically and rhythmically vigorous, with intricate harmony work, all resting on the solid foundation provided by Cleves' deft and resonant guitar work. A particular highlight for me is "Zimbabwe Zimbabwe". Running at over eight minutes, a song length most likely to tax my powers of concentration, we travel the length and breadth of the country in sonic textures, and there is musical interest in every bar. Of note is the rhythmic change at about three minutes which injects even more excitement, especially with the clever vocal interchanges and the keyboard punctuation marks.

Did I achieve Tarab on listening to this collection? Perhaps not quite. Nevertheless this CD is a delightful cornucopia of sound, imagery and life and forms a highly credible journal of Cleves' travels across this planet. It is worthy addition to anyone's CD collection.

Mike Raine

BOOK REVIEW
Tarab — Travels with my guitar, by Carl Cleves Transit Lounge Publishing
SINGER RECORDS HIS LIFE’S GRACE NOTES
Known to many as the multi-award winning singer/songwriter from The Hottentots, Carl Cleves displays in Tarab his skill as a natural and masterful storyteller. With wit, intelligence, evocative descriptions, and an infectious curiosity, the author takes us on a remarkable 30-year journey through Africa, Europe, South America, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Australia.

Cleves describes himself as "a searcher and a learner". At the heart of his on-going quest is his love of and insatiable curiosity for music, and a deep understanding that music is not only a universal language, transcending cultures and physical barriers, but a unique expression of the human condition. You do not have to be a musician to be drawn into the extraordinary musical experiences that propel Cleves on his journey. A Sudanese singer unfurls his voice in the courtyard of a private home in Mombassa: "The first phrase was a question, the second an invitation, the third left us with an anxious expectancy, the fourth struck suddenly, the fifth bewitched." The song takes Cleves to a place the Arabs call Tarab, "where poetry and music bestow ecstasy and true bliss upon the lucky one", and inspires him to embark on a perilous overland journey through war-torn southern Sudan. He and his wife find themselves guests in the garrison of an Elvis-loving General before eventually making their way north to Khartoum where the finest singers and musicians in the land stage an unforgettable concert.

Whether it be the intrigue of an Indian harp and violin recital on an island in Lake Titicaca, the haunting laments of Huayno singers in Bolivia, or the search for traditional Senegalese rhythms, the thread of the musician's quest is ever present. But this is much more than a musician's memoir. It is a beautifully written and well-researched narrative revealing the philosophical, political and emotional journey of a man and his guitar traversing different cultures, extraordinary characters, near-death experiences, deep friendships, ill-health, a successful recording career, and perhaps the most enduring terrain of all, parenthood.

Beatrice, his first wife, is his companion through the first half of the book. The young Belgian couple flee their conservative home town to seek broader horizons. Powerful images are woven into these early journeys. Travelling by train from Bulgaria to Istanbul, "Farmhouses were covered up to their roofs with crystals of ice, spirals of black smoke rising from their chimneys, puffing periscopes in a frozen ocean." In Turkey there are "Steambaths in Istanbul, blizzards on the road to Ankara, the song of a Kurdish shepherd at a truckstop outside Ezroum." In Darjeeling "I breathed in the short-wave crackle of the crickets, the crash of wood splintering under the axe and the clang of a copper kettle by the spring."

The author's son Tashi, born in Australia, is his primary companion through the second half of the narrative. As a single parent with a 2-year-old child, Cleves follows his musical wanderlust and spends seven years in South America working as a musician in bars and clubs before becoming a successful band leader in Brazil. Remarkable, and sometimes foolhardy adventures are ever present. When Tashi is not quite four, armed with a "dirty page torn out of an exercise book" that contains some pencil scribbles, father and son set out with a Dutch friend to follow a disused Inca trail to Coroico, a small Bolivian town. The trio travel on foot from the thin, freezing air of the Altiplano into tropical forests 4000 metres below. With Cleves spinning endless tales to keep his son going they negotiate rickety rope bridges over precipitous ravines and loose rubble on steep slopes, finding giant butterflies and the ancient staircases hewn out of the rock face. This expedition inspired one of songs found on the CD (also called Tarab) released in conjunction with the book. Recorded in different countries over a period of decades, the author's music is the perfect accompaniment to his written memoir, illuminating how a songwriter translates his experiences into art.

This is a book to curl up with and be transported to other places and other times. The intimate tone gives the reader the feeling of listening to the melodious lilt of a magical weaver of tales. The rich prose is filled with images that will stay with you long after the last page. In Tarab, Cleves has shown himself to be a writer of great talent in prose as well as in song. More tales will surely follow.

Reviewed by Laurel Cohn - Byron Shire Echo July 8, 2008

Tarab: Travels with my guitar
By Carl Cleves
Transit Lounge Publishing, 267pp
We live in an age of faux travel writing. The great adventurers of the past – Wilfred Thesiger, Sir Richard Burton, Eric Newby – have been replaced by clowns who devise shallow rationales and write lame comedies that pass for travel stories. This thought occurred to me as I read this remarkable book by Carl Cleves.

Here is the story of a young Flemish man who turned his back on the security of an affluent middle-class European life and headed off with a young wife and nothing more complex than a desire to experience the richness of the world.

By any measure, Cleves deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Thesiger, Burton and Newby. He is an astute observer (his succinct explanation of the historic forces at play in Darfur and Sudan is exemplary), a passionate participant and a man prepared to undertake interesting, but never crazy, experiences.

His wanderings started almost as an accident. He had accepted a scholarship to study law at Witwatersrand University. On arrival in South Africa he realised he had made the wrong choice. Fortuitously, he changed to musicology, studied African music and headed north with his guitar to experience the music of the continent in all its diversity.

Along the way he deals with deep apartheid-era racism, the harshness of the virtually lawless military forces, smuggling bush babies across borders, almost signs on with a rabid racist who wants to sail across the Indian Ocean and all the time recounts his unique experiences in language so vivid you feel you are travelling with him.

Eventually, Cleves arrives in Australia, forms the world music outfit The Hottentots and, after some time in Sydney, heads for Byron Bay.

Cleves is a rarity. He is a true traveller in an age of holidaymakers and gawpers. He heads out to experience the world and reminds his readers that true travel is about sinking deeply into cultures and allowing unique experiences to change your life. The result is a journey that enriches Cleves and the reader.

Reviewed by Bruce Elder – Sydney Morning Herald –August 2-3 2008