Womad's commitment to bringing diversity to the stage at New Plymouth's Bowl of Brooklands is well known. Next month the Bowl will rock out to a group of five musicians who will travel to New Zealand from arguably the most distant place of any previous Womad performers.
The five piece Jerry Cans hail from Iquluit, the capital of Canada's Nanavut territory, deep inside the Arctic Circle. When I spoke to Jerry Cans accordionist Nancy Mike a few days ago, she told me it was minus 30 degrees outside. So, you get the picture, that Iquluit is a rather inhospitable place.
The Jerry Cans music though is at the other end of the spectrum. It's fun, loud, high energy, a sort of contemporary punk anchored by a folkish instrumentation. But, and it's a big but, what makes it unique, and the Jerry Cans one-of-a-kind, is that they have incorporated the Arctic tradition of throat singing into their sound. Throat singing isn't unique to Arctic Canada, it's also practised in Mongolia for instance. What make the Jerry Cans' use of this ancient technique unique is how they've wrapped it up in a contemporary mix of guitars, fiddle, accordion, bass and drums.
The Jerry Cans have been together for five years and their Womad performances are their first international appearances, although Nancy has been to New Zealand twice already, but not as a musician. Nancy is the primary throat singer as well as the band's accordionist, her partner Andrew Morrison the guitarist, Gina Burgess plays violin, Steve Rigby drums with either Brendan Doherty or Rob Aube on bass. The Jerry Cans' name, by the way, comes from the local practice of jerry cans being used in Iquluit to fuel the snowmobiles which are their main form of transport.
