Reprinted from Green Man Review.
Around the Estate office here, the first Ned Ludd CD got a lot of play when it came out in 1998 (see Jo Morrison’s review). We eagerly awaited a reprise and hoped the band would remember to send it to us when it came out. Alas, they did not, but we found it on one of our periodic sweeps of the ‘net. Finally!
Oh, Lavord e Dignita (Work and Dignity) was well worth the wait. The CD is chock full of passionate labor activist music—nearly seventy-five minutes worth! More a musical project than a band, this version of Ned Ludd features over thirty performers, including both female and male vocalists (including some spoken word), along with people playing electric and acoustic guitars and basses, violins, violas and cellos, numerous percussion instruments, uilleann and Italian bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy and nickelharpa. If this suggests wall of sound to you, be assured that your impression is entirely correct. The overall effect is quite awesome!
The CD includes extensive liner notes printed in Italian and English in a booklet packaged with the case. These include lists of the performers for each piece as well as lyrics—these are intense enough delivered by men with hoarse voices in a language I don’t entirely understand, but reading the meaning in my native language literally sends chills up my spine. For example, here are some of the lines from ‘Se 36 Ore’ (’168 Hours a Week’):
“…master would like us to spend our life in the factory/what we want is work and dignity/this is what we want but they won’t give it to us.”
There are fifteen tracks on this CD. Track 1 (the title track) features a female vocalist (Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart) singing the lyrics in English (“a job without dignity/is not a job/it is something else”). She reappears on Track 14 (‘Another Kind of Love Song’), which is credited to her fellow Scot, Dick Gaughan. Track 12 (‘Alla Riscossa’ aka ‘Til the Victory’) is the only instrumental, and it’s quite memorable. I loved the final track, ‘Distinti Saluti’ (‘Best Regards’) in which all the core members of the band introduce themselves.
I want to play this CD over and over and over again. If comparisons help you at all, I can offer three. In terms of its Italian sensibilities, especially the sound quality, it reminded me strongly of the sound track to the Cirque de Soleil performance Corteo (review here ). In terms of its politics, it reminded me of two UK groups that I love: Band of Hope and McDermott’s 2 Hours. In fact, in the liner notes for Lavord e Dignita, Ned Ludd acknowledges Nick Burbridge’s band as a source of inspiration.
If a visual impression is of interest, just type Ned Ludd into the YouTube search engine. You’ll find videos of the core members of the band playing selections from this CD. All I can say is ‘piu, piu, piu!’ (‘more, more, more!’).
(Ned Ludd, 2007)
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