Firewater The Golden Hour by: Liam Tracey Mon:07-Jul-08 Label: Bloodshot Year: 2008 WB rating 70 out of 100

Naming pairs of blended music styles is easy. You just add the two style names together or come up with some catchy amalgamation of the two and before you know it the style is being followed by act after act. But what happens when musicians from over five countries take key elements of their national sounds and blend them together to create a mixture of more than a dozen styles? When it’s done right, it’s called Firewater, the name of Tod Ashley’s worldwide music collective. No other name is appropriate because no other act comes close to sounding the way they do, even six albums down the track. Their latest creation, The Golden Hour, is one of the most creative and refreshing titles you’ll hear this year and takes listeners of a journey around the world in a single spin.

Tod Ashley – or Tod A as the stage would have it – is not your standard musician. He relentlessly scours the world looking for new influences in people, places, stories and sounds. The man has never stayed put and as a result the sounds of his project Firewater have changed on every record he has released. The Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and South-East Asia would become Ashley’s next conquest when he began The Golden Hour project without realising it in 2005, and the results are a phenomenal blend of the standard sounds you’d expect to hear from these regions, strategically mixed with Ashley’s existing influences and punk rock base. The results are gypsy sounds one minute, Punjabi the next and then on to marching band. And that’s just touching the surface. What’s more is while such mish-mashing seems fraught with danger, it in fact work brilliantly as Ashley creates the perfect blending and transitions between sounds and songs.

The clutching ‘Borneo’ is an instant attention grabber as it opens the album and has you standing to attention with its military precision call-and-response and Ashley’s vicious vocals. The dark-dance feel to the track sets the scene for things to come, with every number tackling a different angle of danceable music, both blatant and subtle. The traditional Turkish dance style in ‘This Is My Life’ contrasts with the Indian style on ‘Bhangra Bros’ and shows the diversity of dance formats that Ashley has experimented with. While mixing world sounds doesn’t sound like anything exceptionally daring, add to the mix Ashley’s raw, Joe Strummer reminiscent voice – which at times seems almost like he’s trying to sound like a stereotypical movie villain – and a more stock-standard rock guitar base and the line between obscure and popular music is most certainly blurred.

By no means should you write Firewater off as a gimmick. Aside from the fact that this is title number six from Ashley and co., it is presented in a topical mode that deals with global issues, politics and personal themes and is most certainly a well expressed final product. Ashley commits his political standing to The Golden Hour through ‘Borneo’ and ‘Hey Clown’ with delicate wit that makes the songs all the more strong and memorable. His feelings of dislocation – most likely due to his wandering around our planet – are found on ‘6:45’ and ‘Feels Like the End of the World’ and give a more personal feel to the whole experience. The fusion of distant musical arrangements and close-to-home lyrics means that Ashley has an edge over most “world music” composers and writers and The Golden Hour presents itself as very much a personal storybook as well as an aural tour guide.

The worldly themes in the lyrics of ‘This Is My Life’ accurately sum up the work of Tod Ashley. His dedication to broadening the music landscape and introducing ears to the less-than-standard is something to be admired and The Golden Hour certainly lives up to its name. There’s a dance for everybody on this album – whether your style is a frenzied rock-out or a more traditional folk saltation – which only emphasises the enjoyment of listening overall.