Songs That Made Us Free

With a predominantly South African cast among musicians from 17 other countries, this multicultural collection of freedom songs, old and new, is a highly worthy project. The three discs are smartly themed ‘Celebration,’ ‘Introspection’ and ‘Inspiration’ so that each has its own cohesive mood. Many of the 37 tracks are genuinely uplifting.

New arrangements of familiar songs including the Italian partisan anthem ‘Bella Ciao’ given a reggae beat, the Buena Vista Social Club classic ‘Chan Chan’ sung by Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera as a moody rock en Español number, and a nice township remake of The Specials' ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ all hit the spot. So do a brace of remakes of anti-apartheid anthems in Peter Gabriel's ‘Biko’ and Miriam Makeba's ‘Soweto Blues’, the latter sung in Italian for some reason. But there a few stinkers, too, including a grating version of the World War II resistance song ‘The Partisan’, memorably recorded by Leonard Cohen, and the trad-folk song ‘Shosholoza’ inexplicably and excruciatingly rendered in prog-rock fashion. Several of the new songs work well, including a homage to Ray Phiri and Hugh Masekela and an exquisitely orchestrated instrumental tribute to Desmond Tutu, written by the Guinean kora player N'Faly Kouyaté. One is loathe to criticise such a well-intentioned project, but rather too many of the new compositions are lost in a homogeneous global-rock swamp.