Various Artists: Big Blue Ball

By Steve Morley

World music—any non-Western indigenous music style or fusion of these with Western popular music—has been on the rise since the mid-1980s. It‘s no coincidence that the genre’s growth occurred after British rock artist Peter Gabriel helped launch the first international music, arts and dance festival in 1982 and later founded Real World, a record label specializing in international music. Starting in 1991, Gabriel hosted a series of weeklong, around-the-clock recording events at his studio complex, where spontaneous collaborations took place between musicians and singers from some 20 countries. Now, 18 years after those one-of-a-kind global summits began, comes an audio souvenir titled Big Blue Ball.

The 11 tracks here scarcely represent the scope of that creative cross-pollination, though they display the broad juxtaposition of nationalities facilitated during the sessions. On the propulsive “Shadow,” Spanish guitar joins with vocals and percussion from the African Congo with a result so seamless that no one but an ethnomusicologist would be the wiser. “Altus Silva” synergistically combines Congolese drumming with the keyboards of French duo Deep Forest and pairs up American and Gaelic vocals, sung respectively by Joseph Arthur and Iarla Ó Lionáird. Arthur’s semi-dark verse takes a transcendent turn when Ó Lionáird introduces his yearning chorus melody, doubled with an Irish whistle. The track culminates with both melodies sung in tandem, neatly symbolizing the criss-crossing of cultural lines. 

Elsewhere, the multi-national interplay is more subtle and diffuse, and the overall tone of the disc is less celebratory than ceremonial. This is particularly true of tracks featuring Peter Gabriel, which echo the mature pop style and meaningful content of his typically sage-like solo work. “Whole Thing” considers the vast size and momentum of planet Earth while simultaneously pondering how a precious relationship can become the center of one’s personal universe. The melancholy title cut, which steers surprisingly clear of standard unity themes, reflects on earthbound myopia and the gravity that distracts us from loving well.

On “Exit Through You,” the condition of sin and the need for a supernatural cleansing is implicit in potent lyrics about forgetting to wash one’s heart. (“What use is it to wash that stuff away?/ In every place that we have run to/ All that we've begun with was there to stay/ When my days have been clocked/ And all the gates have been locked/ When the way is all blocked/ I exit through you.”) Irish singer Sinead O’Connor combines praise and prayers for peace on the somber devotional “Everything Comes From You,” and “Rivers,” sung in Hungarian, provides a meditative pause. But perhaps the most inspirational aspect of Big Blue Ball, aside from the heavenly notion of “every tribe and tongue” it represents, is the suggestion that peaceful coexistence—especially during a time of such global discord—might be more than just a beautiful dream.

Audio Clips

"Whole Thing"

"Habibe"

"Shadow"

"Altus Silva"