Before ska, rocksteady, reggae, or dub, there was mento. The Jamaican musical style grew from an encounter between African and European traditions, and its banjos, guitars, hand percussion, and rumba boxes accompanied dancing, drinking, storytelling, and songs about life’s daily irritations. But 70 years after its heyday, mento’s place in Caribbean popular music has now become marginal, as the global prominence of styles that came after mento has tended to make the earlier genre seem like merely a prelude.
June McDoom’s debut album, Follow the Light, is a revivification of mento as well as a memento of her family history. Her grandfather, Colin Smith, was a professional mento musician who played banjo and built rumba boxes. As a child, McDoom absorbed the music when she saw him perform at family parties; at the same time, she was developing a musical consciousness of her own through listening to folk music, with Simon & Garfunkel among her early favorites. On Follow the Light, she marries her inherited and acquired musical traditions with style, grace, and ingenuity.
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McDoom’s songs find a resonance between Jamaican styles, especially dub and mento, and the forms that emerged from ’70s folk as it mutated into acid folk, prog, and psychedelia. Rather than preserving folk’s association with the acoustic and the nontechnological, McDoom exposes its sounds to dub’s electronic manipulation, cracking open the arrangements with spring reverb and spongy synths—a smart way to ensure the songs don’t become a goofy folk period piece.
Working with her frequent collaborator Evan Wright, McDoom builds her arrangements from nylon-string guitar and voice. Her acid-folk and chamber-pop influences supply harp, flute, harpsichord, and strings, while the Jamaican influences bring low frequencies, echo, and electronic manipulation to her organic sounds. The resulting sensorium never sounds overly fussy or strained for virtuosity.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
