There Is No Other

There Is No Other is a collaborative studio album by American singer-songwriter and Carolina Chocolate Drops vocalist Rhiannon Giddens, and Italian jazz musician Francesco Turrisi. The album was produced by Joe Henry and was released on May 3, 2019 by Nonesuch Records.[1][2]

There is No Other
Studio album by
Rhiannon Giddens
ReleasedMay 3, 2019 (2019-05-03)
Length45:00
LabelNonesuch
ProducerJoe Henry
Rhiannon Giddens chronology
Freedom Highway
(2017)		 There is No Other
(2019)

Critical reception
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
AnyDecentMusic?8.1/10[3]
Metacritic86/100[4]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[5]
Evening Standard[6]
Financial Times[7]
The Guardian[8]
The Irish Times[9]
Mojo[10]
Pitchfork7.6/10[11]
Rolling Stone[12]
The Times[13]
Uncut9/10[14]

There is No Other was met with universal acclaim reviews from critics noted at review aggregator Metacritic. This release received a weighted average score of 86 out of 100, based on 8 reviews.[4]

The album, which primarily features Giddens and Turrisi playing together on several instruments, presents a mixture of interpretations to a diverse collection of songs from around the world with two original songs (by Giddens). Since its release, There Is No Other was publicly introduced as an album which is "Tracing the overlooked movement of sounds from Africa and the Arabic world and their influence on European and American music..." and which "...illuminates the universality of music and the commonality of the human experience".[15]

The reviews usually followed these lines of introduction, and mainly praised the unique implementation and the high quality outcome. However, among the writing concerning the album there is an article which stands out for reviewing There Is No Other in a wider musicological context, pointing out its relation to the work of Peter Van der Merwe, especially Van der Merwe's meticulously researched book "Origins of the Popular Style".

The article, written by John Jeremiah Sullivan (as an in-depth examination of the cultural and historical context of Giddens' work as a whole) explains that in his research: "Van der Merwe shows how the “gliding chromaticism” characteristic of the blues spread via Islamic influence into West Africa (in particular the Senegambia region) and, via Spain, into Ireland and the “Celtic fringe.” From those places, these styles and sounds rode farther west, to North America, on slave ships and immigrant ships. In the American South, the Celtic and the African musical traditions met. It was an odd family reunion. Each culture had its own songs, but the idioms understood one another. The result was American music.". Against that background, Sullivan therefore opines that "the album that Giddens and Turrisi have made together functions as a kind of proof of Van der Merwe’s musicological thesis".[16][17]

"To my ears, the album is the first true Rhiannon Giddens record. Joe Henry produced it, beautifully, by getting as far out of the way as possible. The arrangements are stark. The engineering and the mike placement are direct and intimate. It’s the sonic equivalent of a long still shot in natural light".[18]

Track listing
No.TitleLength
1."Ten Thousand Voices"2:57
2."Gonna Write Me a Letter"4:03
3."Wayfaring Stranger"4:47
4."There Is No Other"2:25
5."Trees on the Mountains"5:15
6."Pizzica di San Vito"2:07
7."Brown Baby"5:07
8."Briggs' Forró"4:03
9."Little Margaret"3:03
10."Black Swan"4:17
11."I'm on My Way[19]"2:57
12."He Will See You Through"3:59

Charts
Chart (2019) Peak
position
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[20] 99
Scottish Albums (OCC)[21] 23
US Top Tastemaker Albums (Billboard)[22] 24
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References
  1. Gage, Jeff (May 20, 2019). "How Rhiannon Giddens Merged Her Musical Selves With the Help of an Italian Jazz Musician". Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  2. Betts, Stephen (March 20, 2019). "Rhiannon Giddens Details Collaborative New Album With Francesco Turrisi". Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  3. "There Is No Other by Rhiannon Giddens reviews". AnyDecentMusic?. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
  4. "There is No Other by Rhiannon Giddens Reviews and Tracks". Metacritic. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  5. Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "There Is No Other – Rhiannon Giddens". AllMusic. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  6. Broughton, Simon (May 10, 2019). "Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi – There Is No Other (Nonesuch Records)". Evening Standard. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  7. Honigmann, David (May 3, 2019). "Rhiannon Giddens: There is No Other — a dialogue between the Americas and the Mediterranean". Financial Times. Retrieved August 8, 2019.
  8. Rogers, Jude (May 3, 2019). "Rhiannon Giddens With Francesco Turrisi: There Is No Other review – a folk landmark". The Guardian. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  9. Long, Siobhan (May 9, 2019). "Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi: There Is No Other review – Filigree and ferocious in equal measure". The Irish Times. Retrieved August 8, 2019.
  10. Simmons, Sylvie (June 2019). "Rhiannon Giddens: There Is No Other". Mojo (307): 89.
  11. Sodomsky, Sam (May 8, 2019). "Rhiannon Giddens: There Is No Other". Pitchfork. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  12. Bernstein, Jonathan (May 3, 2019). "Review: Rhiannon Giddens' Worldly 'There Is No Other'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  13. Hodgkinson, Will (May 3, 2019). "Rhiannon Giddens: There Is No Other review". The Times. Retrieved August 8, 2019.
  14. Williamson, Nigel (May 10, 2019). "Rhiannon Giddens With Francesco Turrisi – There Is No Other". Uncut. Retrieved August 8, 2019.
  15. see Rhiannon Giddens's New Album with Francesco Turrisi, "there is no Other," Now on Vinyl, published on September 13, 2019 in Nonesuch Records website (retrieved November 2, 2019)
  16. Noting elsewhere in the article that Giddens is aware of and referred to Van der Merwe’s book during a keynote address she gave on September 2018 at the AmericanaFest conference, in London: "she used it to illustrate her point that the instruments that we typically 'think of in modern music—the guitar, the banjo, bagpipes, violins, the list goes on—have been in constant movement and constant change since the time of the ancient world'."
  17. Elaborating, as a further example, the story of how Giddens and Turrisi's version of the ballad “Little Margaret,” came about
  18. John Jeremiah Sullivan, Rhiannon Giddens and what folk music means, an article published on May 20, 2019 in The New Yorker website (retrieved November 2, 2019)
  19. co-written by Rhiannon Giddens and Joe Henry. see the official video of I'm on My Way, as published in the official YouTube channel of Rhiannon Giddens
  20. "Ultratop.be – Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi – There Is No Other" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  21. "Official Scottish Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  22. "Tastemaker Albums". Billboard. May 18, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
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