Moonlight Benjamin describes her music as a blend of voodoo and rock’n’roll. Born in Haiti and living in France, she is both a voodoo priestess and a powerful singer-songwriter with an impressive vocal range. Benjamin sounds thrilling, thoughtful and, at times, downright spooky. Title track Siltane is one of the songs of the year. It starts as a brooding, bluesy Haitian rock ballad and slowly builds, with a controlled power and sense of danger and theatricality that makes her sound like a Caribbean Patti Smith.
This has been a great year for Haitian music, thanks to new albums from RAM and Mélissa Laveaux, and a memorable double bill by Laveaux and Leyla McCalla at the London jazz festival. Now comes Benjamin, an artist with an intriguing history. Her mother died giving birth to her, and Benjamin was brought up singing hymns in a church orphanage. Later, in Port-au-Prince, she met voodoo musicians and listened to western rock, then moved to France, where she studied jazz. In 2009, she travelled back to Haiti for a voodoo initiation.
As a musician, she experimented with different styles before settling on the current lineup of a Haitian bass player and percussionist, a rock drummer and guitarist Matthis Pascaud, who transforms her songs with his powerful riffs. There’s one traditional track, Simbi, paying tribute to a water spirit; and there’s one ballad, Mèt Agwe, to show she can also handle quieter songs. For the most part, though, this is an album of no-nonsense Haitian blues-rock, with stories of the voodoo spirit world or life in Port-au-Prince mixed in with lyrics by Haitian writers. All of it is dominated by Benjamin’s exhilarating voice.
This month’s other picks
Fusion pioneers Afro Celt Sound System return with Flight, a brave and epic set mostly concerned with migration. It needs cutting back, but the massed ranks of choirs and musicians match the exuberance of the band’s live performances. Two years ago, David Attenborough recorded The World Music Collector (available on BBC iPlayer), a fascinating programme featuring field recordings he made around the world between 1954-1963 while working for Zoo Quest. It included great stories but too little music. Thankfully, My Field Recordings from Across the Planet, a lavishly packaged double album, features far more of his often-historic recordings, though not enough of Attenborough himself. What’s needed is a new radio series that gets the balance right.
