Full length number three from this amazing outfit, whose debut, Guitar Music From The Western Sahara, we made our Record Of The Week back in 2008, and whose second record, Treeg Salaam, we probably should have, both of those albums brimming with, as we mentioned in past reviews: "dizzying blasts of lo-fi electric guitar driven rhythmic African folk, clattery homemade percussion, jubilant vocalizing, repetitive and melodic and hypnotic, and super rocking."
This latest lp offers up a different side of the band's sound, songs that adhere to the roots of Saharoui music, the roots of Group Doueh's sound, played mostly on traditional Moorish instruments: the tinidit (a three string lute), the ardin (a kora-like harp), the tbal (a clay drum) and the kass (tea glasses), but this is Group Doueh after all so those traditional instruments are augmented by synths and GUITARS!
The opening track is sooooo gorgeous and sets the tone of the record, darkly rhythmic, lush and layered, sweet tangles of intricate melody, the arrangements emotional and propulsive and jubilant, laced with subtle drones and flurries of rapid fire notes, minimal but still so rich and dense and deep. Not all of the record is so tied to the past, after all the Group Doueh sound we know and love was born of this music, and is not really that far removed, so many of the other songs drift into more familiar territory, although the arrangements and instrumentation remain subtly closer to traditional Saharoui music, but again, since our exposure to that music has mostly been via Group Doueh records... well, you get the picture. Every song here is a fantastic celebration of sound, from sublime desert blues buzz to soaring vocal driven high life, to droned out psychedelia to super stripped down vocal/rhythm jams, and those vocals, again so incredible, so emotional and passionate, the perfect match for the music underneath which exudes the same sort of passion. The final track on side one slips back into a sound more minimal, a sprawl of hypnotic buzz and skitter, totally trancelike and hypnotic before exploding into a noisy psychedelic blowout, perfectly bookending the tracks in between.
The offers up still more fantastic desert blues folk bliss, singing strings, propulsive rhythms, vocal harmonies, some wild serious steel string wrangling guitar action of course, peppered with bits of that more minimal rhythmic traditional music, but all woven into the lush living colorful fabric of GD's gorgeous timeless sound.
As with all Sublime Frequencies vinyl releases, EXTREMELY LIMITED, this will most likely be sold out and out of print in the next week or two, pressed as always on thick vinyl and housed in a super swank, heavy full color gatefold sleeve. ----* ----* Highlights : ----*
Wow! The first vinyl-only (that's right, no plans for a cd we're told) Sublime Frequencies release focuses on a single group rather than an anthology of regional folk and pop or collaged radio broadcasts. Struck by an ecstatically squealing lo-fi blast of electric guitar from a song heard on Moroccan radio, the Sub Freq's main man, Alan Bishop went on a quest for the regional origins of that particular electric sound. Canvassing numerous cassette dealers, he was only able to identify the music as Sahwari and to pinpoint the region as the Western Sahara, a disputed territory nestled on the Atlantic Coast of North Africa between Morocco and Mauritania where frequent political struggles have caused the massive displacement of the region's indigenous people. A few months later, Bishop's colleague, Hisham Mayet, armed with Bishop's recording travelled back to Morocco to continue the search, ending up in the last outpost of the Western Sahara, Daklha, where through the help of the Sahwari shopkeepers was finally led to the creator of the strange music himself, Baamar Salmou, or as he is known in Sahwari, Doueh. Born in 1964. Doueh learned guitar on a homemade instrument fashioned from pieces of wood and steel strings. In 1981, influenced by Mauritanian music as well as Spanish cassettes imported from Europe and America of Jimi Hendrix and James Brown, he formed Group Doueh, fast becoming one of the definitive groups in the region, playing in festivals all over Northern Africa and even in France and Portugal. His wife Halima later joined as a vocalist and percussionist and in later incarnations, Doueh's son Jamal joined on keyboards. The tracks on this release are all taken from Doueh's personal archive except for two recordings made by Mayet, early last year. This is definitely some of the strangest and twisted ethnic music we've heard in awhile with its buzzing lo-fi circular guitar hooks and exhuberant vocalising and infectious rhythms, reminding us of aspects of Konono No1's DIY tinkering, Tartit's desert trance-jams and a bit of the Shaggs self-taught charm (not so much in sound, but how a lot of the guitar parts follow the vocals). Limited to 1000 copies, this is so awesome and highly recommended!!
Treeg Salaam came out on vinyl a while back, but disappeared so quickly, we never had enough to review, and before we knew it, it was out of print. So we waited and waited patiently, hoping, fingers crossed, that this too would get released as a cd and we're happy to report it finally has!
If you remember, last year we made Group Doueh's Guitar Music From The Western Sahara our Record Of The Week, and folks went crazy for it, ourselves included. A dizzying blast of lo-fi electric guitar driven rhythmic African folk, clattery homemade percussion, jubilant vocalizing, repetitive and melodic and hypnotic, and super rocking.
This latest collection is culled from the group's personal cassette archive, and definitely displays all the sides of this versatile group.
The record opener is all simple percussion, warbly wah guitar, keening vocals, group background harmonies that follow the guitar melody, mantra like and completely mesmerizing. But it's the second track where the group lets loose, with super distorted tinny guitar, whipping up a wild buzzy squall, the rhythms relentless and intense, the vocals a wild smattering of hoots and hollers, the guitar part super crunchy, growing ever more intense as the track builds to a frenzied coda before finally fading out.
The next track features some incredible, strangely effected guitar lines, all woozy and warped, super fast picking creates a twisted tremolo sound, male and female vocals intertwined into haunting harmonies, very intense and emotional, draped over that main minor key guitar part. The next track is another heavy guitar jam, the vocals nearly buried by the chunky effected riffing, all muffled and murky, but super driving and intense and wild and kick ass, with a bad ass female vocal breakdown about halfway through, totally soaring and soulful. Group Doueh must be the ultimate party band, these recordings sound incredible, and we can only imagine it sounded even better being there.
Finally, the record closes with the nearly 20 minute "Tazit Kalifa" which begins very raga like, with mumbled electric guitar, over buzzing one string drones, the vocals minimal, almost spoken, simple drums surface part way through, giving the track a little groove, but the guitars continue to buzz and drone, the vocals chanting right along, absolute African raga drone bliss. So great! And once again absolutely and utterly recommended.
Yet another record from this incredible Saharan outfit, number four if you're keeping track, their first was an aQ Record Of The Week, and the other two might as well have been, wild guitar driven African folk, rhythmic and percussive, all very hypnotic and mesmerizing, trancelike for sure, with some incredible vocalizing, soulful and emotional, all wound into some of the most jubilant, energetic, emotional and original music we've ever heard.
Our first impulse this time around was to say that this was simply more of the same, but in fact, the sound has definitely changed, due in no small part to what seems to be an expanded lineup, as the elder Doueh has enlisted his next oldest sons, on synth and drum kit, and it's really the drums that are the big difference. The first track is immediately more propulsive, the production better than ever, the low end thick, the vocals way up in the mix, the drums so hypnotic, and of course the guitars, impossible tangles of super intricate melody, gnarled riffs, all woven into a sound that's surprisingly super rocking.
And actually 'super rocking' might just be the best way to describe the whole record. The aforementioned drums are powerful and ever present, and the guitars remain impossibly wild, wooly and wonderful, drenched in effects, wah and flanger, or some approximation, making the notes and riffs twist into fantastic new shapes, the keyboards adding all sorts of texture, and the newly added trio of female backup singers adds even more oomph, the choruses and call and response vocal harmonies so rich and lush.
There are a couple tracks that stand out, where the band set aside their new rocking-ness, and instead unfurl gorgeous hazily psychedelic expanses of guitar buzz, sounding more like a sitar, the melodies all tangled and interwoven, while the drums offer a deep resonant pulse, and the vocals wail passionately way down in the mix, cuz here it's about the crazy intricate dense guitar playing, which is incredible, so hypnotic and utterly mesmerizing.
The record finishes off with a lengthy jam that is definitely another of our favorites, sounding a bit more laid back than the rest of the record, less buzzy, and more warm and washed out, the guitars unfurling gorgeous little flurries of notes, the rhythms and main riff locked tight so that it almost sounds looped, and at times like the record must be skipping, those moments eventually blossoming into synth laden, softly droney stretches of strummy folk and sun dappled Afro-pop bliss, dreamy and so divine. Like all the records before, utterly fantastic, and totally recommended. We can only imagine how great it must be to see Group Doueh live, but thankfully, we won't need to imagine much longer, as this record coincides with their first US tour!!
Another winner from Sublime Frequencies! We're beginning to think with all this hidden music to be discovered and lost classics to be recovered, there's definitely no point in having so many new bands, we oughta just have some of them swap their gear in and just join the hunt for all this amazing music we miss out on...
But until then we've got the Sublime Frequencies fellas on the case, and this latest discovery has definitely got to bee one of the best yet. Group Inerane are spearheading the Tureg Guitar movement, inspired by the musicians who used this music as a political weapon in the Libyan refugee camps in the late eighties, early nineties. This is how the blues should sound. Groovy, intense, funky, emotional, dark, gorgeous, the guitars grinding and crunching and wailing, slithering and soaring, accompanied by chanted and sung vocals, that are perfectly woven into the lush fabric of the various guitar parts. The riffing is fluid, but also bit jagged and rough. The opening track is a killer. One of the most amazing and intense songs we've ever heard, worth the price of admission alone. Just guitar and vocals, chunky and propulsive, but also weirdly slippery and sinewy, the melody swaying back and forth from major key to minor key, an incredible hook and the riff, well, one of THE best riffs ever.
Most of the rest of the record is more a sort of African surf rock, fuzzy and twangy, with surfy guitar, soaring vocals, the whole thing wild and festive, jubilant and celebratory, but hold up, the final track on side one, "Nadan Al Kazawnin", is something else entirely, with its super distorted grimy guitars, a totally blown out in the red production, the riff looped and hypnotic, the vocals intense and heartfelt, the whole song howling and buzzing, sounding as gorgeously fucked up and raw as some experimental indie avant noise group, the guitar is indescribable, incendiary and white hot, all tangled up with the vocals, and bathed in distortion, wouldn't be out of place on some super limited cd-r... Totally amazing.
Pressed on super thick vinyl. Packaged in a heavy duty, full color gatefold sleeve, with tons of photos and liner notes...
LIMITED ONE TIME PRESSING OF 1000 LPS!
It's always exciting to get something new on Sublime Frequencies, and in this case even MORE exciting, the third in the Guitars From Agadez series, and the second from the mighty Group Inerane, leading lights of the Tureg Guitar Revolution, and in this case, revolution might be an apt description. For with the joy of new music from Group Inerane also comes sadness, as the guitarist of the group, has been shot and killed in the ongoing rebellion battles, and Inerane mainman Bibi Ahmed barely escaped with his life from the very same battle.
Hard to imagine a group like this continuing to play music, and tour and perform, in the face of such constant dangers, but for Group Inerane, Group Bombino, and other Tureg Guitar groups, this music is their rebellion, their statement, how they speak out against the senseless loss of life and oppression, and it's that emotion and energy that seeps into every not, every chord, every vocal. Extremely powerful and intense, which is also what imbues the music of Group Inerane with an ineffable magic, that had us utterly entranced at first listen, and this record follows suit.
To replace their fallen comrade, they recruited Koudede, aka Absoulahi Maman, a legendary Tureg Guitarist in his own right, the resulting chemistry is indeed potent, the sound not much changed, but the energy and interactions of course subtly different.
For those new to Group Inerane and Tureg Guitar music in general, just check out the cover, a guitar player in a super fancy satiny robe, holding his guitar up over and behind his head as he presumably SHREDS! Inside, blurred photos of the band rocking out, and that's precisely what Group Inerane traffics in, high energy desert blues, psychedelic and cyclical, hypnotic and in its own way HEAVY.
The sound is warm and sun dappled, celebratory and effusive, plenty of twang and buzz and jangle, simple motorik drumming, intensely emotional and powerful vocals, with lots of whooping and cheering and call and response, emblematic of the hope and joy in the face of the grim realities all around them. The guitar playing is of course incredible, super buzzy and mesmerizing, cool little melodic tangles, locked in tight with vocal counterpoint, or a skittery rhythm, the sound manages to be both loose and free, but also tight and locked in, the recording here is live in a room, so the sound is raw and immediate and intimate, the vocals wreathed in natural reverb, the guitars ringing out, fleck of traditional folks music woven int the groups psychedelic hypnotic desert blues, and while every track is gorgeous, and mesmerizing, like all great guitar bands, it's when they let loose, stretching out the end of a song space rock style, and let the guitars howl and sing and get all tangled up in each other, jams that could, and should go on forever, and these guys definitely have that in them, and when it happens, it's like some glorious Tinariwen / Hawkwind collision.
As always, so so good, and like much of the music we hear from Sublime Frequencies, it's so much more than just the music, we lose sight of that sometimes, but these sounds, and songs, these are people's lives, and hopes, and dreams, and it's their way to be strong and never give in. And listening to this, beyond the sheer joy and exuberance of the music, it's humbling to share in those emotions, and in this music.
Gorgeous deluxe full color gatefold sleeve, with tons of photos and plenty of liner notes. EXTREMELY LIMITED, and vinyl only (for now)...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Volume four in the ongoing Sublime Frequencies Guitars From Agadez series, comes in the form of this extremely limited tour 7" from Group Inerane, and it might just be the heaviest most hypnotic jams we've heard from these guys so far. Which is saying a lot.
The A side, which plays at 33, features two fierce numbers, the first, some seriously distorted desert blues, fuzzed out guitars, wild drumming, a propulsive groove, spidery mesmerizing melodies, all distorted and in-the-red. The other track is a wild dense tangles of heavy guitars and soaring vocals, swirling and dizzyingly rocking, the sounds blurred and buzzy and gloriously incendiary.
The flipside, which plays at 45 rpm, offers up another fiery, blistery, buzzing Afro-blues blowout, all churning distorto guitars and some incredible, guitar playing, the sort of guitar mastery that puts most other technical shredders to shame, so tranced out and hypnotic, groovy, fuzzy and so so soulful.
And again, ULTRA limited, these could very well be the last copies we can get...
Okay, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. The always amazing Ethiopiques series continues on past volume 20 with no end in sight. We were wrongly led to believe that volume 20 was to be the last in this, one of our all time favorite series, and we were heartbroken. On top of that, the final installment was quite surprisingly a live recording of modern day American musicians jamming with an Ethiopian band. It was still cool, but it was a bit tough to figure out why the curaters of this series would choose to go out on that kind of admittedly anticlimactic note, when there were certainly hundreds of buried treasures from the golden age of Ethiopian music that most definitely deserved to be unearthed. This newst volume quickly sets everything right, being entirely the solo piano of a woman named Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou. Her playing is devastatingly lovely and haunting. A curious hybrid of old time jazz and classical, but still truly Ethiopian. Dark and contemplative, moody but subtly playful as well. Culled mainly from recordings from the late 40's early 50's, a period during which Guebrou had recently left the convent due to illness, and then continued to compose and perform as a way of raising money for charity. And THAT's on the heels of having moved to Egypt and then returned to Ethiopia a figure of high society, her dream of playing piano dashed by the Emperor, which led her to sickness and then near death, she even received the last rites, survived and then joined the Imperial Guard, went back to school to study business finally fleeing to join a convent and become a nun. All the while continuing to play music, in fact she continues to perform to this day, in Ethiopia where she still lives, four of her most recent recordings (from 1996) are included here as well.
Her story is amazing, the liner notes go into great detail about her fantastic and adventurous life, but her music is equally as remarkable, the sound and feel is so dense with memory and imagery, musical but somehow quite visual, warm and woozy, a fuzzy, sepia toned old timey feel, due in no small part to the recording, which is quite reminiscent of old 78's, the soundtrack to movie Crumb, that sort of thing, dark rumbling low notes underpin sweet swirls and delicate flurries of minor key melody, sweet and lowdown for sure, warm evenings, back porches, big beautifully appointed parlors, huge empty fields, grass waving in the breeze, long late night wanders, moonlight strolls, so completely dreamy and lovely. Definitely one of out favorites so far in the series. We hope it never ends!
Teranga Beat is yet another amazing world music label, who along with Sublime Frequencies, Yaala Yaala, Sham Palace and a few others, continue to discover some of THEE most amazing sounds around. Halleli N' Dakarou is a live recording from a West African outfit called Guelewar, their last in fact, captured in 1982, and is a fantastic document of the group, often described as one of the more/most psychedelic bands from Africa, due in no small part to their mix of classic African songcraft with more modern instrumentation, most notably, the Mini-Moog, which the band use to wreath their heady fuzzy Afro-funk in wild squiggly melodies and woozy swirling textures, the synth often all tangled up with spidery guitar melodies, and intricate rhythms, the band featuring SEVEN vocalists, and THREE percussionists, as well as a guitarist who is credited solely with "Guitar Solo".
While the sound won't be unfamiliar to fans of West African music, Guelewar definitely had their own unique take on the sound, tranced out and cyclical, most definitely psychedelic, the percussion creating a dense grooving framework beneath a constant swirl of melodies, super dynamic, funky for sure, but also mesmerizing and drone-y, many of the melodies almost raga like, wound around spiralling cascades of notes, as well as brief blurts of distorted psych guitar, the sound slipping easily from a jubilant high-life to warped synth driven grooviness, to something much more brooding and mysterious. Incredible stuff!
The packaging too is ace, super striking cover art, and extensive liner notes with tons of rare photos.
We're really feeling the early house music vibe these days. Sometimes we just want to slip into some tiny hot pants and roller boogie away (sez Allan? Scott? Andee?). At least that's the feeling we get from this comp from Ghana's prodigious keyboardist Kiki Gyan and his disco-era music from 1978 through 1982. As this release's liner notes explain, Gyan got into recording disco tracks after he defected from Osibisa, the influential pan-African outfit that helped start the whole UK Afro-rock scene in the late '60s. In his post-Osibisa years, Gyan continued fusing African highlife sounds, jazz, blues, soul, and rock with fellow Osibisa defectors. As Gyan became swept up in Europe's cocaine-fuelled party scene, he and collaborator recorded the title track. "24 Hours In A Disco" has all the lush violin arrangements and falsetto vocals common to popular '70s disco tracks, but it also includes a bongo breakdown! Unfortunately Gyan wasn't always the nicest guy, and he stripped Ayivor's vocals from the original recording and re-released it in Nigeria without his bandmate's permission so as to horde the profits. That's the version you're getting on this comp. We haven't heard the original, but with its super-tight conga playing, this one is still pretty spectacular. On "Keep on Dancing" Gyan adds steel drumming into the mix along with a cowbell breakdown. "Disco Dancer" features some great syncopated hand-clapping and Gyan's slap bass work and funky keyboard lines. The atmospheric vocals here will lift any disco denizen into the heavens. Many of the tracks would be right at home at Larry Levan's Paradise Garage or even David Mancuso's super-underground Loft parties. All the cuts on this comp work really well as a cohesive album and you'll find yourself playing it from start to end and then back to the start again!
Another wild blast of African electronic music from the Sahel Sounds label (who also gave us the Music From Saharan Cellphones comps, and amazing records from Mammane Sani Et Son Orgue, Agali Ag Amoumne, Alkibar Gignor, and tons more!). Much like the tracks on Music From Saharan Cellphones, Hama, a composer/synthesizer player from Niger, enjoyed immense popularity throughout his country via the unlikely music distribution of digital recordings on memory cards, traded and played on cellphones. But it's not just the method of distribution that's special/unique, Hama has created a strange hybrid of influences, from American techno, to African folk music, the resulting sounds are all over the sonic map, some like some spaced out krautrock ("Ataraghine"), others like wild video game music, playful and fun ("Tarhanam"), still others like some avant African kosmische, with the synth sounding almost like an alien bagpipe (or maybe a little reminiscent at times of aQ faves Amps For Christ), the rhythms, motorik, and occasionally robotically funky, the whole thing like some futuristic tranced out Tuareg music. So good. Fans of all the Sahel Sounds releases (as well as everything on Sublime Frequencies, Awesome Tapes From Africa, etc.) will definitely dig big time!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Hand screened sleeves and hand-stamped labels.
One of two great Afrobeat finds this week, unearthed by the awesome Soundway label (see the Sweet Talks review elsewhere on this list too). Hedzoleh Sounds were (and still are!) one of the most original "Afro" bands from the early seventies in Ghana, combining West African highlife with funk and western rock sounds. Famously recruited by jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela ("Grazing In The Grass") as his backing band after a recommendation from Fela Kuti for Maskela's 1973 Afro-jazz rarity "Introducing Hedzoleh Sounds" (which we're hoping will also get a reissue!), this self-titled release from 1972 is even rarer, documenting the band from their beginning singles and their stint as the house band at the Napolean Club. Known later in years as stalwart performers of more traditional sounds and horn-fueled highlife, this self-titled release not heard for over forty years is more remarkable for its lack of the horn section that later defined them. Making it a more lean, stripped down excursion, heavy on swinging funk rhythms and gorgeous sweet vocal harmonies. Killer!
Beautiful understated solo piano from this multitalented South African artist. Gorgeous!
If you have never heard of Rikki Ililonga or his influential band, Musi-O-Tunya, you are not alone. As it goes in the rediscovery of important music especially outside North America, the true innovators of a sound and a scene are often the last to be rediscovered, and Rikki Ililonga is a case in point. Followers of the aQ list have no doubt been aware of the recent spate of "ZamRock" reissues, most lately, from Witch, and Tirogo, and farther back, gems from Ngozi Family, Chrissy Zebby Tembo, The Peace, and Amanaz, that really have shown the influence of Jimi Hendrix and heavy psych on this part of Southern Africa. Well, Rikki Ililonga through his band Musi-O-Tunya and subsequent solo records were there from the beginning, releasing the very first pop and rock records after Zambia gained its independence, thus pioneering the birth of "ZamRock".
The Now-Again label has done an incredible job of compiling two discs of recordings from the years 1973 through 1976, one disc devoted to Musi-O-Tunya, and the second disc to Ililonga's solo recordings. The first disc traces the band's roots from its Afro-beat beginnings with bass and horn funk rhythms to more lo-fi fuzzy garage rock singles band then to a heavier psych powerhouse singing full on in English. The centerpiece single being the title track, "Dark Sunrise", should get any heavy seventies I-rock head salivating. The second disc compiling Ililonga's first two solo records is a more varied affair as he goes through many seventies styles and tropes. There's still plenty of heavy psych with searing guitar leads, but there's also some Thin Lizzyish power rock, baroque rock balladry, heavy sexy blues and even some rhythmic Afro-pop.
The cds are housed in a 32 page full color hardback book compiling photos and interviews, liner notes and ephemera, and the triple lp vinyl version is even fancier, a massive boxset containing 12 page booklet, and individual, exact reproductions of Ililonga's original 3 albums (thus tracklist of the vinyl format is somewhat different than the way the cds are organized, as described above). Whooo yeah!
Tinariwen, Group Inerane, Bombino, Koudede, Tartit... there's quite an amazing scene of North African groups making groovy guitar sounds out in the desert, isn't there? Add Mali's Imarhan Timbuktu to the list - though they're not that new, having been around since 1993, regularly playing the Festival au Desert as well as touring further afield in Europe and the States (in fact, they just played SXSW). They also share members with the aforementioned Tartit. But this is the first recording we've had from this Tuareg ensemble, lead by guitarist/vocalist Mohammed Issa Ag Oumar El Ansar (also simply known as Medissa). It's largely a family affair with Medissa and his brother on interwoven electric guitars, and their two sisters backing them up with traditional hand drums. There's also a bass player, and someone rockin' the calabash (a gourd-based percussion instrument). Together they provide more of that rhythmically satisfying, intricate desert blues goodness we've come to expect from all these exciting groups from the Sahara. Proud musical transmissions from a culture in turmoil and transition, protest music that's definitely danceable, with twanging, jangling, sometimes searing guitar, and jubilant, mellifluous vocal lines. Great stuff.
FYI, just on cd for now, but there's a limited vinyl version upcoming for Record Store Day!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
If you're looking for some punchy high life to dance you butt off to, then the Imo Brothers' Eastern Nigerian recipe is for you. Though recorded in the early 80's, the authenticity is still here and the good track lengths will attest to a healthy workout!
Those expecting a documentary in the traditional sense, wherein a huge film crew with lighting rigs and hired security take over a small village while an authoritative voice-over gives you a blow by blow account of what unfolds before your eyes may be disappointed. This is a one man, one camera production. Shot entirely at night, relying on the good will of the participants, and leaving the interpretation up to you, the viewer, filmmaker Hisham Mayet takes us on a tour of Marrakech, Morocco's Jemma El Fna -- "the central square of the final outpost before one ventures into the great beyond of the western Sahara desert". All along the square people, mostly men, gather in circles around individual and groups of musicians. playing oud, banjo (!!!), various bowed instruments and percussion, the performers are accompanied by singers ranging from seasoned veterens working the crowd to youthful amateurs. In one section a young girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old sings and dances as an envious peer looks on. Perhaps one of the coolest moments though is when our cameraman stops by a gentleman set up in the square with his portable turntable and classic 7"s, sampling for us some of his favorites, crackly with age, and carefully wiping off the beautiful but worn jackets for us to see. Clocking in at 50 minutes, there's not a dull moment on this disc. While we forwarn those living overseas that this disc is NTSC, it is also region-free for those with multi-region players.
A few lists back we made a record called Ndagga Versions our Record Of The Week, that record was released at the same time as this one, and we essentially a 'dub' version of this record, as in less vocals, a bit more tripped out. But we loved that record so much, as did loads of you, that we figured we oughta list the record proper. And a funny thing happened when we returned to this one to review it, we realized that even though this is the 'vocal' version, the vocals are still a pretty minimal component. That said, some of the vocals are fantastic, and it's nice to hear them incorporated into the dense Senegalese rhythms. Needless to say, some folks who bought Ndagga Versions, might feel like they don't need this one, or more of this sound, but we're guessing lots of folks who read the aQ list are like us, and ALWAYS need more. So this is essentially the same review as Ndagga Versions, slightly altered, so just know that it's much of the same music, but with more vocals, check out the sound samples to hear what we mean, and read on, we recommend 800 Percent Ndagga almost as much as Ndagga Versions... And if you don't have either, you might actually want to start with this one, if you like to hear singing.
Mark Ernestus is probably best known as one half of the Basic Channel production team and record label (along with Moritz Von Oswald). The two also ran the Chain Reaction label, and both continue to make and release music, Ernestus most notably recently remixing tracks by Konono No.1 and Tony Allen as well as co-releasing the amazing Shangaan Electro compilation we reviewed a while back. Apparently, over the last few years, Ernestus became increasingly obsessed with Senegalese Mbalax music, which is super rhythmic, featuring multiple drummers playing wildly syncopated rhythms, the drums augmented with marimba like synths, the music wild and tangled, dense and driving, groovy and funky, dubbed out and super trancey - it's not hard to see why a techno visionary would find this stuff utterly mesmerizing. And thus was born Jeri-Jeri, a collaborative project between Ernestus and a griot clan of Senegalese drummers. At first we were maybe expecting a sort of African/techno hybrid, but wisely, Ernestus let's the drummers and other musicians do their thing, while he mostly mixes and produces. And that THING is track after track of hyper rhythmic grooviness that definitely speaks to the sort of looped mesmer of techno music, here accompanied by a handful of amazing vocalists including Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour doing their own thing over these rhythmic workouts. Even with vocals, the drums are obviously the focal point, but there's also sinewy basslines, the occasional keyboard and synth, often adding yet another rhythmic component, and some subtle melodies, some guitar jangle here and there, adding some minimal tonal coloration, and echoes and fragments of the various vocal lines surface throughout, dubbed out and heavily effected even on the non 'version' version, but really, every track here is a glorious celebration of rhythm and sound, of drums as divine, and they sound so divine here, with most tracks featuring both a complement of Sabar drummers as well as a drummer on a traditional kit, the overlapping rhythms, the syncopated grooves, the barrage of beats, cascading grooves, all wound around simple looped melodies, and locked tight, it's totally irresistible, the sort of singular sound that is both dancefloor ready, but also dense and nuanced enough for headphone listening, some track wild and raucous, others tightly wound and darkly groovy, all of them sublime, emotional, and energetic, lush and organic and ALIVE. Drummers, and fans of drum music will be in heaven, but really, anyone and everyone who is drawn to the rhythm in sound, whether it be techno music, world music, metal music, will be hard pressed not to be totally mesmerized by these sounds.
Mark Ernestus is probably best known as one half of the Basic Channel production team and record label (along with Moritz Von Oswald). The two also ran the Chain Reaction label, and both continue to make and release music, Ernestus most notably recently remixing tracks by Konono No.1 and Tony Allen as well as co-releasing the amazing Shangaan Electro compilation we reviewed a while back. Apparently, over the last few years, Ernestus became increasingly obsessed with Senegalese Mbalax music, which is super rhythmic, featuring multiple drummers playing wildly syncopated rhythms, the drums augmented with marimba like synths, the music wild and tangled, dense and driving, groovy and funky, dubbed out and super trancey - it's not hard to see why a techno visionary would find this stuff utterly mesmerizing. And thus was born Jeri-Jeri, a collaborative project between Ernestus and a griot clan of Senegalese drummers. At first we were maybe expecting a sort of African/techno hybrid, but wisely, Ernestus let's the drummers and other musicians do their thing, while he mostly mixes and produces. And that THING is track after track of hyper rhythmic grooviness that definitely speaks to the sort of looped mesmer of techno music, even moreso here, as this is the instrumental version of the Jeri-Jeri record, the 'versions' in dubspeak. Which is not to say the record proper is not great, it is, and features a handful of amazing vocalists including Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour doing their own thing over these rhythmic workouts (and we do have copies in stock, just ask!), but stripped of the vocals, it somehow becomes even more mesmerizing, the drums obviously the focal point, but there's also sinewy basslines, the occasional keyboard and synth, often adding yet another rhythmic component, and some subtle melodies, some guitar jangle here and there, adding some subtle tonal coloration, and remnants of the original vocals surface here and there, dubbed out and heavily effected, but really, every track here is a glorious celebration of rhythm and sound, of drums as divine, and they sound so divine here, with most tracks featuring both a complement of Sabar drummers as well as a drummer on a traditional kit, the overlapping rhythms, the syncopated grooves, the barrage of beats, cascading grooves, all wound around simple looped melodies, and locked tight, it's totally irresistible, the sort of singular sound that is both dancefloor ready, but also dense and nuanced enough for headphone listening, some track wild and raucous, others tightly wound and darkly groovy, all of them sublime, emotional, and energetic, lush and organic and ALIVE. Drummers, and fans of drum music will be in heaven, but really, anyone and everyone who is drawn to the rhythm in sound, whether it be techno music, world music, metal music, will be hard pressed not to be totally mesmerized by these sounds.
We weren't sure what to make of this one at first, a mix of modern electronica, and traditional African music, the story of how these two guys got together is a good one, John Wizards, aka John Withers, was living in Africa, when he met Rwandan singer Emmanuel Nzaramba, the two talked music, while Nzaramba was at work, and Withers was walking around with a guitar, they then parted company, Nzaramba losing his job and his cellphone, only to meet a year later, in a different city, at which point the two decided to work together. The results are pretty strange, but wonderful too, minus the vocals, this might be some idiosyncratic Planet Mu oddity, but the vocals root the music in the traditions of classic African folk music. The sound is a dizzying hodgepodge that aQ-ers might imagine would result from a mix of Shangaan Electro, Music From Saharan Cellphones, and some of the weirder Sublime Frequencies releases. The first two tracks deliver what sounds like a plunderphonic collage of sounds and influences, swirling calliope like melodies, twangy guitars, reverbed piano, disco-y drumming, groovy psychedelic synths, handclaps, what sounds like a looped field recording, transformed into a woozy melody, whistles, thick bass buzz, steel string guitars, wild psych jams, drum machine stutter, all of which gives way to some stripped down drums, and what must be Nzaramba talking to Withers over a strangely electrified version of African high life, then some autotuned vox, and the song unfurls as some warped modern day variation of classic African music, laced with all sorts of warbly electronics, dubbed out drum beats, mutated synths, the song stripped of all the weirdness might be too saccharine and straight, but as imagined by Withers, it becomes something super freaky, and super fun. And so the whole record goes, the songs leaping from sound to sound, style to style, groovy disco-funk, stuttery R&B, woozy slow jams, mellowed out dubstep, cheesy eighties MTV style pop, dreamy collages glitchery, and pretty much every twisted variation in between, the recording super loose and abstract, with some of the songs just stopping, allowing us to hear Withers and Nzaramba talking in the studio, before the song bursts back into action. So good, so strange, and so fun. Easily the coolest, weirdest 'world' music record we've heard in a while. Anyone into the above mentioned comparisons (Sublime Frequencies, Music From Saharan Cellphones, Shagaan Electro), should definitely check this out...
Outside of Nigeria, most Nigerian artists from the golden era of Nigerian High Life live deep within the shadow of Fela Kuti. To be fair to Fela his output alone dwarfs all comers, and he was one of the founding fathers of the modern Nigerian sound. Orlando Julius, while not blessed with as large an oeuvre as Fela is as great an architect of the music. Julius cut his teeth playing in the early high life bands starting back in 1961. By the time Fela Kuti had returned from abroad with his head full of ideas, Orlando Julius had already started his band The Modern Aces and begun revolutionizing the stagnating music scene. It was his band that Fela looked to when he started his precursor to the Africa 70, Koola Lobitos. Now available for the first time outside of Nigeria are 9 tracks of soulful Nigerian high life recorded by Orlando Julius between 1969 and 1972. Includes historical sleeve notes by Miles Cleret.
Classic mid-sixties Nigerian High Life from one of the best. Orlando Julius not only worked with Hugh Masekela, Lamont Dozier, and the Crusaders but gave James Brown the inspiration for "I Feel Good" (supposedly, may not be true but it's believable). This album has never before been released outside of Africa. A foot stomping great collection of funky high life.
It's always a challenge to meld electronic and organic sounds. When done correctly, it can be sublime, an otherworldly fusion of seemingly diametrically opposed musics, an impossible hybrid that on rare occasions can most definitely transcend its constituent parts. When done incorrectly, it can sound flat and forced. Or can simply not work at all. Most egregiously, the enduring 'electronica flecked folk' that we do on occasion love, but which in most cases is simply pedestrian strum and croon peppered with glitch and buzz and somehow presented as avant.
But this, this is something else entirely, an unlikely fusion of acoustic percussion, electronic studio production, various bits of programming and processing, and most importantly, recordings of actual Kenyan folk music, vocalists, traditional string instruments, all woven seamlessly into Kacirek's subtle sublime productions. It definitely makes more sense once you realize Kacirek is in fact a virtuoso jazz drummer and percussionist, thus the rhythmic focus of The Kenya Sessions, but that background in drumming hardly prepares us for this, a heady, propulsive, effusive, dark and mysterious bout of electronic folk music. And minus the voices, it's practically impossible to discern the Kenyan field recordings from the studio productions, there are moments of skittery Kompakt-like techno shuffle, but just as often, it Kacirek playing Marimba, or playing on a snare with brushes, and wrapping those sounds around the buzz of some African stringed instrument, or taking the various rhythms and weaving them into a lush, pulsing backdrop for some lovely vocalizing, the results are incredible, and range from the dark, buzzing and brooding opening track, "Arsenal Aluny Village", which almost sounds like a super minimal African Portishead, to the twangy shuffle of "Old Man Small Studio", the electronics dialed way back, but the marimba and tuned percussive melodies adding a distinctly Western pop element to the more traditional sounding vocals, or the murky almost Oval-esque shimmer of "Dear Anastasia", the backdrop smokey and sultry, the melodies dark and minor key, but then the vocals again transform the song into something completely original and very much unlike anything you've ever heard.
Imagine your favorite Sublime Frequencies compilation, or one of the Ethiopiques collections, if they were released on Kompakt, or imagine How To Dress Well composing a chill out soundtrack for late night Kenyan clublife, there aren't any 'beats' proper, instead the rhythms pulse and throb, shimmer and shuffle, skitter and stutter, usually super subtle, as textural as they are rhythmic, tangled up with pianos and marimbas, and then the Kenyan recordings, traditional instruments, twang and buzz, and those vocals, soulful and emotional, sometimes call and response, other times moody and crooned, and the sounds while often electronic, borderline 'techno' sounding even, just as often, veer toward something else entirely, more concerned with evoking a mood, creating a gorgeous ambient space, one that often explodes into something rhythmic and propulsive, but just as often slips into something hushed, and minimal, mysterious and lovely.
The record finishes off with the amazing "Takaye Preaching", which does indeed seem to be some preacher preaching, whose almost song like sermonizing, is accompanied by some perfectly matched up rhythmic flurries, skittery muted grooves and shuffling percussion, the rapidfire vocal delivery somehow softened by Kacireks's instrumental accompaniment, the result sounding like some moody jazzy drift wrapped around a hyper hip hop flow, but again, once the two elements are melded, it's hard to imagine that this was constructed in a studio, and not some sort of unlikely jam session, which is pretty much the magic of the whole record. A fantastically unique sonic document, a sort of avant world electronica, or minimal electro Kenyan soul, or maybe downtempo electro worldmusic, whatever you wanna call it, we're loving it, and odds are you will too.
We completely flipped for Sven Kacirek's The Kenya Sessions, a record where Kacirek, a producer, drummer and percussionist, traveled to Kenya to record local musicians, in their homes and on the street, and then took those recordings and wove in his own. The result was a fantastic electronic / world music hybrid, so seamlessly executed it was often difficult to tell which was which.
The Palmin Sessions are from a few years earlier, but seems to employ the same method, with Kacirek playing real acoustic instruments, vibraphone, kalimba, drums, glockenspiel, as well as brushes, books, paper, film, doors and other unlikely sound making devices. And like The Kenya Sessions, these tracks are incredible, the fusing of real drums, and programmed electronics, all woven into songs lush and organic, sometimes dreamy and laid back, other times intense and super propulsive.
Opener "Heinrich & Helene" is the perfect example, with its warm, soft focus vibraphone melodies, all wreathed in little streaks of electronics, glitches, bloops and bleeps, all very subtle, total bliss out drift off minimal electronica, but then the drums begin to surface, gradually overtaking the hushed shimmer, the playing getting more and more busy, until they erupt in a fantastic squall of wild drummage, still surrounded by electronic blurs and smears, only to blink out, and revert to the opening hushed drift. Awesome.
And the rest of the record is just as good. Some tracks are a bit jazzy, others are almost house-y, still others sound like Kompakt style pop ambience, there are horns, tinkling chimes, occasional vocals, all the tracks based on rhythms, and Kacirek's playing in particular, while the production transforms all the sounds into washed out, dreamlike, ethereal skitterscapes, and warm, woozy, soft focus drifts of electronic shimmer.
Imagine the sound of Konono No. 1 if you took away the percussion, but not the distortion, and replaced the modified thumb pianos with an elaborately constructed xylophone called a Gyil (made from large wooden slats suspended over calabash gourds that have been fitted with resonators). That would you get close to the sound of master performer and instrument builder, SK Kakraba Lobi. Long used in funeral rites in his native Ghana, the Gyil has a deep hypnotic otherworldy tone that seems apt for carrying departing spirits into the afterlife.
Kakraba comes from a long ancestry of Gyil masters and is fast becoming a popularizer of his instrument, tribal traditions, folklore and songcraft now that he has moved to Los Angeles. There he resides with his American-born wife and builds xylophones in his garage in Highland Park and plays local markets, where he caught the attention of Cameron Stallones aka Sun Araw, who released Kakraba's third album on Stallone's Sun Ark imprint. Yonye is a compilation of traditional Lobi music from Ghana, whose loping rhythms hypnotize in spellbinding formations and deep meditations. Recommended!
Second release from the Teranga Beat world music reissue label, who are fats positioning them as a new label to watch, the first, Halleli N'dakarou, by Guelewar, we reviewed on the last list and everybody flipped for it, a primo slice of vintage African psychedelic soulfunk, notable in part for the fact that their classic African sound was augmented by very modern Moog synthesizers. Karantamba is actually related to Guelewar, in that it was the last band of Bai Janha, who founded the group Alligators, which would in fact become Guelewar. And like that Guelewar record, it was the cover that first grabbed us, the band performing love, Janha (we assume) in front of the organ, with a synth on top, guitar strapped on, playing the flute! Fuck yeah. The music here, while not featuring the Moog, is definitely very much in keeping with the sound of Guelewar, which makes sense as Janha is credited with inventing this sound, a sort of African psychedelic soul.
And we find ourselves about as obsessed with this record as we were/are with the Guelewar. The sound lush and drivingly rhythmic, laced with some incredible, intricate guitar playing, and AMAZING drumming, there are either multiple drummers, or one insane superhuman drummer - just check out the closing minute of the opening track, spidery guitar melodies draped over wild chaotic drumming, and what is essentially a full on drum solo, one we didn't want to end. So great.
The whole record is fantastic, soulful, fuzzy, groovy, the guitar playing is unique and inventive, beholden to classic African music for sure, but taking all sorts of influence from the West, not to mention some serious sonic invention/innovation beholden to NO ONE. There are horns, and organs, call and response vocals, it's jubilant and energetic, but also a bit dark, and minor key, but for us, it's really the relentless guitar/percussion interplay, that makes this so incredible. All it should take is listening to the first sound sample below, and we're guessing you'll be hooked too...
We've been hearing lots about the great benga music coming out of Kenya but haven't been able to get our hands on too much of it. Luckily, the group Kenge Kenge, because of their higher profile and the wider availability of the recordings, are serving as a pretty great introduction to this sound. It's a magical combination of instruments that creates this exhilarating, totally compelling and joyous sound. Unlike a lot of other African bands who have been gaining wide notoriety of late, there are no guitars here. Instead, kenge Kenge utilize a combination of flutes, horns, fiddles, percussion, sound box, gong and vocals. Totally upbeat with steady rhythms and a lush, organic delivery and such a wildly joyful and positive disposition. It's refreshing too, that while it's cleanly recorded it doesn't sound slick or overproduced at all. In fact in lots of ways it kind of reminds us of a more rootsy, less blown out and amplified version of AQ faves Konono No.1. Really good stuff!
We usually start reviews of records released on Mississippi Records with a blaring announcement that looks a little like this:
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Cuz we know there are plenty of folks out there, that like us, are crazy obsessed with that label, and will buy ANYthing and EVERYthing they release. And we imagine those folks will no doubt buy this one as well, but for the folks who might not be quite so Mississippi obsessed, or who might have gotten in the habit of seeing that announcement and skipping on by, we didn't want anyone to miss out on this one, because this record just might be the one to suck you in and MAKE you that obsessed. Sure it's yet another incredible unearthed gem from the crazy music obsessives who run the impeccable Mississippi Records label, and as we hinted at above, pretty much everything they release is worth checking out, and yeah, they're all special in their own way, there's a bunch of others on this very list, but this one, this one is something else altogether, a collection of 78s from legendary Indian classical vocalist Khansahib Abdul Karim Khan, dense, lush, emotional and spiritual ragas, haunting and mystical and completely gorgeous. A huge influence of legendary minimalist composer La Monte Young, in fact the liner notes offer up a quote from Young that basically says it all: "When I first heard the recordings of Abdul Karim Khan I thought that perhaps it would be best if I gave up singing, got a cabin up in the mountains, stocked it with a record player and recordings of Abdul Karim Khan, and just listened for the rest of my life."
We can definitely understand his feelings, this is the sort of music, so powerful and so passionate, that it definitely puts most 'singers' to shame. The instrumentation is very traditional classical Indian, but it's the vocals that drive these songs, the instruments way down in the mix, Khan's gorgeous vocals soaring and dramatic, haunting and moving and utterly breathtaking. We've seen descriptions of these recordings as being "not easy listening, but ultimately very rewarding", and while we definitely agree with the second half of the statement, these sounds while complex and totally unlike most of the other music you've heard, are not at all difficult to listen to, just the opposite, after just a few seconds, you'll be whisked away, totally transported, as the sounds surround you, and seep into your spirit and soul. The music here so utterly transcendent, so lush, warm and welcoming, yet at the same time, so strange and wondrous, Khan's voice sounding like its bathed in divine light.
Khansahib Abdul Karim Khan truly was a sonic shaman for the ages, delivering these divine musical messages to us, his willing supplicants. Incredible.
Packaged in super thick full color old school tip-on jackets, with a big booklet packed with liner notes and photos.
A record like this is pretty much destined to be an aQ Record Of The Week. A super limited double lp, on Sublime Frequencies, featuring two whole lps of spaced out Arabic instrumental psychedelic surf rock and Eastern progressive beat, from legendary Arabic actor and musician Omar Khorshid, who is criminally unknown outside of the Middle East, especially considering his high profile, and the fact that this is some of the heaviest, buzziest, most rockingest stuff we've heard yet on Sublime Frequencies.
Born in Cairo, and widely considered to be the greatest guitarist in the Arab world, Khorshid became a ubiquitous presence in the Middle East, performing live, in televised concerts as an actor in films and on television, by the seventies he began working with a legendary Beirut composer, and his music became more and more avant and progressive, as did those who looked to him for inspiration, he helped introduce modern electronics, reverb, delay and other effects, pushing his sound way out, and creating something totally unique, and pretty fantastical.
On first listen, you can't help but be blown away. Wild tangled outer space synths, buzzy sitar like guitars, wild drumming, a strange sort of hypnotic buzzing Eastern style surf rock, which to these ears sounds like it was cooked up in a makeshift kitchen recording studio by an Arab Joe Meek. Fuzz guitar all over the place, almost like a Middle Eastern Ventures, propuslive, hypnotic, totally rocking, energetic and inspired, and seriously progressive, especially for the time.
His death was as dramatic as his life, after performing in 1977 at the Egyptian / Israeli summit at the White House, and being seated between Presidents Carter, Begin and Sadat, he was constantly harassed, enduring several assasination attempts and near constant surveillance, before being killed at age 36 in a mysterious car crash.
But his legacy lives on in his music, finally being exposed to a wider audience, a music at once original and forward thinking, exuberant, ebullient, fun and funky, wild and rocking and totally unique. Definitely one of our favorite Sublime Frequencies releases. Only on vinyl for now, and while it's likely there will be a cd version (which we'll also make a Record Of The Week when the time comes), we can never be 100 percent sure, so better grab one of these quick, espeically considering we only got 40 of these and most likely won't be able to get any more! ----* ----* Highlights : ----*
It would be a considerable understatement to say this new Killing Joke album is a sobering listening experience -- it's a fierce, visceral, and bleak call to battle. It rocks and rages with echoes of their 1981 debut (and first self-titled) album's feel and spirit. Yes, genuinely punk, and yes, genuinely metal... although those stifling labels can't and won't adhere to this band. Frankly, very few artists today can capture the pure seething energy that this, Killing Joke's second self-titled album, has harnessed.
Jaz Coleman tears out of your speakers like a man posessed. His deeply inspired vocal performance delivers some of his most inhuman gutteral growls, anguished howls and demonic hisses. Birlliant. His lyrics, brutally direct, are steeped in immense disgust and despair, with hard-hitting political critiques -- cross-hairs unquestionably zeroing in on Bush, September 11th and America -- interestingly, a lot of the heavy duty ones are omitted from the liner notes.
Geordie Walker's thunderstorm of guitars drill and grind, at once both tightly clenched and loosely slung -- pelting your ears with metallic shards and sinewed debris. Original bassists Youth and Paul Raven consume any remaining air with glowering lines that boil and stew. With each song, the unrelenting roar of Killing Joke closes in around you.
Drummer Dave Grohl -- apparently not busy enough with Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age -- does an excellent job immersing himself in the Killing Joke realm, closely resembling the pummeling precision and tribal thrash of Martin Atkins. Hopefully Grohl's presence (his name is stickered prominently on the front of the cd) will draw younger audiences to this venerable band.
Unlike other bands from the past who've regrouped recently for one last hurrah or to cash in on the latest retro trends, it's clear Killing Joke have resurfaced because they truly have something vital to convey (just as they did back in 1990 with Extremities... dirt... etc). They don't churn out albums year after year to fulfill record contract obligations -- they make music with a piercing focus when they feel the need and when it is needed.
Andy Gill's production is beautiful and huge (but not too 'modern rock'), making for a generally accessible and current sounding album (although some of the tracks are overly long) -- one that should have hard music fans clambering.
If you were ever into Killing Joke, check out this album! If you're new, this is a pretty good place to start.
AFRO FUNK! Includes download code.
Nigeria-born, London-schooled bandleader Peter King started his career in the '60s playing highlife and jazz before venturing into the James Brown inspired realms of afro-funk, of which "Shango" (named after the Yoruba god of thunder) is a prime example. These mostly instrumental tracks (there are some chanted vocal parts, often with a political message like "Freedom!") are super jazzy and groovy, with King's sax and flute joined by a bunch of other horns, percussion, and electric guitar/bass/drums. Recorded in 1974 but actually never released at the time, "Shango" was rediscovered when the Afrostrut label was putting together the excellent "Nigeria 70" compilation -- King's wife remembered the recording, and it turned out the tapes had actually been sitting beneath the bed of Peter King's son for who knows how many years! You'd think having something this funky under your bed would keep you up at night... Anyway, it's cool they found this, anyone into the soulful sounds of the "Nigeria 70" comp or all the other Afro-funk stuff that's been getting reissued recently will be glad to hear this.
From the very first notes of Assume Crash Position, we're immediately transported right back to Kinshasa in the Congo, a bustling town square, people going about their business, cars zooming past, children playing and shouting, people sitting at tables on the sidewalk drinking, eating, catching up, birds perched in the trees, chirping, just a regular bustling African city, except maybe for a certain group of musicians, creating their own soundtrack to daily life, conjuring up a gorgeous, rhythmic, hypnotic and strangely psychedelic racket, equal parts classic African folk music, High Life, and junkyard percussion. The musicians are wielding a strange array of hand built instruments, there's lots of rusted metal, car batteries, old cracked loudspeakers, various drums, and most notably, some fantastic looking, and even more fantastic sounding amplified thumb pianos. By now, regular readers of the aQ list most likely know we're talking about the truly amazing Konono No.1, quite possibly one of our favorite African ensembles ever, past or present. When we first hear them a few years ago, we were blown away, the super distorted thumb pianos spitting out clouds of rapid fire chiming notes, tangled melodies, all locked into super hypnotic drum driven grooves, call and response vocals, simultaneously festive and danceable, dark and mysterious, raw and feral, primitive and DIY, lush and melodic and like nothing we had ever heard before.
When we first threw on Assume Crash Position, our first thought, was that very little had changed, and to a certain degree that's true, all of the above mentioned elements are still present, the wild thumb pianos, still the focal point, their sound curious but so warm and sweetly melodic, the call and response vocals, the tribal percussion, the groovy rhythms, but from the first track it IS in fact evident that some things have changed. That opening track, "Wumbanzanga", is far more melodic, far more pretty and almost more like some of the other traditional African music we've heard in the past, with great female vocals, the vibe super festive, but those thumb piano melodies definitely add a distinctly Konono vibe. Then the next track, "Thin Legs" explodes in a frenzy of whistles and tribal drumming and vocals, that's it, but it too manages to be super melodic and totally effusively celebratory.
It's not until "Mama Na Bana" which opens with that Konono style stop start THRUMP THRUMP THRUMP, where the whole group locks in, before launching into classic Konono, it's really hard to describe, but those fuzzy buzzing metallic melodies wrapped around the repetitive rhythms and the super emotional vocals, the whole rest of the record is classic, albeit a bit more polished and melodic, Konono junkyard Congotronics...
Some of the highlights this time around include "Makembe", with its buzzing melodies, crooned vocals, and the sounds of kids playing and birds chirping, before there's a BIG crash, apparently the sound of a concrete wall collapsing, a wall the vocalist was moments earlier leaning against, and then the band launches into one of the best jams on the disc. Or the gorgeous closing lullaby of "Nakobala Lisusu Te", with muted thumb pianos, super tangled melodies, and a sweet soulful croon, so dreamy and blissful, the perfect way to unwind after a wild, sweaty, funky, groovy, Congotronic workout.
The packaging is cool too, with tons of photos of the local scrap yard / junkyard, where the band gather up most of the material they use to build their instruments, not to mention a shot of that collapsed wall that crumbled mid-song. As with past Konono's, utterly and absolutely wholeheartedly recommended!
So here it is! Hard to believe it's finally here -- some of us have been waiting forever for this record, or at least ever since we discovered a tiny, super compressed, thirty second long sound clip on the internet over a year ago. In all of half a minute, we became OBSESSED. Completely captivated by this band's totally alien, lush, organic 'world music' weirdness. We eventually tracked down a (great) live record by Konono No.1, which we listed here a few weeks back, and then after tons of internet sleuthing and a bunch of emails we finally managed to get in touch with someone at the Crammed label in Belgium who was willing to sell us this brand new studio album directly, since they are without US distribution. Phew! So was it worth it? Hell yeah! Anyone who heard that infamous sound sample (which was from this album), or who got to hear the live record, knows that this band is totally amazing, and indeed this record is beautiful, wild and wonderful, chaotic and festive, totally perplexing but completely mesmerizing. For those who missed out on the live record (which we've also just restocked!) or are new to the wonders of Konono No.1, here's the story: twenty five years ago, Konono formed in Kinshasa, an area between Congo and Angola, performing their own version of traditional Bazombo trance music, incorporating the then-unwanted distortions of their haphazard homemade sound system. They left the bush and settled in the capital where they were forced to compete with the harsh sounds of the city: cars, trains, buses, shouting, etc. So with very little to work with they fashioned pick-ups, microphones, loudspeakers and amplifiers from stuff they could find on the street -- old car batteries, pots and pans, magnets, even branches. Their main instrument is the likembe, a kind of thumb piano. Konono features three of 'em (bass, medium and treble) and the sound of the electrified and amplified likembe is what defines their sound. Accompanied by dancers and percussionists, the likembes wail and drone, buzz and moan, totally overblown and distorted, sounding a little like sixties fuzz guitars, turning a glorious high life jam into something much more strange and wonderful. Super rhythmic, and thick with the buzzing melodies of the likemebe's, Konono weave a massive sound. It's the wildest weirdest street party you've ever been to. Throbbing with energy and emotion, rambuctiously rollicking and totally infectious. Seven lengthy tracks that all sort of bleed and fuse into one epic world-psych jam. The African high life Hawkwind? So so great!
Check out this video clip:
KONONO [http://www.crammed.be/craworld/movies/konono_promo.mov]
Yay! These AQ faves -- everyone's faves -- from Kinshasa are back with another exciting dose of their "Congotronics". Chances are, especially if you're a regular AQ customer, that you know all about 'em already, and maybe even got to see them at one of the shows that (lucky for us!) they've played over the past couple years in San Francisco. Live is where it's at for them, a sweaty, joyous, unstoppable, never-ending groove heavily laced with the sound of their signature instrument: the DIY homebuilt electric amplified African thumb-piano (called a likembe). In the hands of Konono No.1, it produces a bright, burbling, somewhat distorted, almost-electronic-keyboard sort of sound that we immediately fell in love with way back when we first heard the band. But that of course is not all, there's plenty of percolating percussion underpinning the likembe melodies, over which they do exuberant vocal toasts and call-and-response chants. When they get going full-on, you'll want to turn it up LOUD and let the whole neighborhood enjoy the energetic density of Konono No.1.
Eight tracks, 52 minutes total, recorded live (sounding great!) in Belgium. Some songs you might recognize from versions on the previous two Konono discs (Lubaku and Congotronics), others are previously unrecorded. All will get your body moving, guaranteed. This is dance music, nothin' but. At home alone, unwilling to dance? It'll still bring a mesmerized smile to your face for sure.
We have been totally obsessed with these guys (as have the rest of you judging from how many folks have called and emailed about them and already bought a ton of copies from us before this review even was written) for at least a year if not more and until now there hasn't been a thing (other than a minute long mp3 sample available on Crammed Discs' website) which has been taunting us with the promise of a full length from these guys. So until that fabled Crammed Discs release actually comes out we've got this little nugget to tide you over. And it's no small shakes neither. Though we only learned of them recently Konono No.1 have been around for some 25 years. Hailing from Kinshasa, Congo, Konono No.1 are true African punk rock. They are real D.I.Y. Not putting on shows and printing zines, no, how about building their own instruments from found scraps and dismantled machinery and retrofitting and electrifying traditional instruments! For instance the lead musician Mingiedi Mawangu has taken his likembe (thumb piano), rigged it up to pickups (self-built from hammered parts purloined from car starter motors) and amplified it with a custom built amplifier driven by a car battery, using microphones built out of copper wire and branches. How cool is that! And the sounds these instruments produce is amazing. The likembe, with its muted gentle melodic thrum, is turned into an overdriven buzzing melodic powerhouse that sounds like nothing you've ever heard. Well, sometimes it sounds a bit like some sort of psychedelic alien fuzz guitar, but mostly it just sounds amazing and bizarre. The songs are all very melodically similar and mesh into one massive hour long jam, with wild percussion, chanted vocals, and of course the wailing Likembe. So completely amazing. Every time we play this in the store, someone buys one. Immediately.
Seven extended tracks, recorded live and released on the Ex's label Terp.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
If there was ever a more unlikely split record, we sure can't think of one. But if there was ever a split we'd most like to see, it would be hard to do better than Konono No1 and the Dead C. Not sure if the two bands are a perfect fit, or just happen to satisfy our weirdly eclectic tastes, but this split 12" is fucking amazing. Two new tracks from Konono No 1, who if you are an avid reader of the AQ list are no doubt already familiar with ( we carry both their full lengths, their live record Lubuaku, as well as their studio album Congotronics). An African ensemble led by a trio of amplified Likembes (thumb pianos) and whose equipment is cobbled together from car parts, branches, batteries and other urban detritus. The sound is wild and joyful, rollicking and totally exuberant, the likembes sounding like some alien underwater psychedelic guitars. Wow. And then there's the Dead C. What can you say? One of the most important bands to ever come out of New Zealand. The masters and originators of the NZ free rock sound that has influenced hundreds of bands and been copied by hundreds more. The first 5 tracks are locked grooves, but skip past those (or not!) and you'll find three brand new tracks, 17 minutes of the Dead C in clattery chaotic rock mode, bursts of stumbling, distorted, propulsive free rock, like some lost Krautrock classic, played through crappy practice amps and on a beat up old drum kit, everything drenched in tape hiss and recorded in some cavernous space. Now if they had only managed to get Konono to record WITH the Dead C...
YAY!! The return of a long-time aQ favorite, the one and only Konono No.1, whose new album for Crammed was made with Angola-born, Portugal-based producer Batida, who has had some cool albums of his own particular electronica/world music melange released on the Soundway label. And never fear, the irresistible & irrepressible DIY sound system, heavily rhythmic dance party vibe they call "Congotronics" is in full effect here, with all the electric thumb piano and scrapyard percussion and joyous singing you'd expect - no big changes you'll really notice, though Batida brings in some additional players (like guitarist Papa Juju) and makes some tweaks to the sounds around the edges in fairly subtle ways.
This is not music for standing still, it's for dancing and chanting and having a good time - and once again Konono & Co. deliver, so happy day that this is out!
Do we even have to tell you this is cool? Basically this is something you should want as soon as you read the words "Guitars From Agadez" and "Sublime Frequencies" on the sleeve. Being a limited 7" single also ought to seal the deal.
Everything so far from SF in their Guitars From Agadez series (records from Group Bombino and Group Inerane) has been killer, and this introductory taste of the talents of another North African axe master, Koudede Maman, follows suit. Koudede & his band unleash some smoking, sinuous, hard edged grooves on both hypnotic sides of this single, recorded live on tour last year. Wish we'd been there, sounds like a funky good time. And we most certainly hope that SF has a full-length in the works!
Limited to 600 copies.
The fantastic Sublime Frequencies "world music" label brings us another installment of incredible North African guitar music, in the vein of Group Inerane and Group Doueh. We first heard the talents of young Tuareg six-stringer Koudede & his band on Sublime Frequencies' previous Guitars From Agadez Vol. 5 single, and when we reviewed that we said we hoped there was a full-length in the works, 'cause we wanted to hear more of Koudede's hypnotic, hard-edged grooves. Sadly, though, with this release comes the news that Koudede was tragically killed in a traffic accident in October this year, while travelling back to Niger from playing a show in Burkina Faso. So while Vol. 5 was an exciting introduction to his music, Vol. 6 must be a tribute to his memory, and what might have been. The two tracks here were recorded live by SF's Hisham Mayet at a tumultous concert Koudede played in January 2012, in the midst of ethnic strife in Mali.
Limited edition of 700 copies (Vol. 5 is long gone already).
After two 7"s, Sublime Frequencies has released the final four tracks recorded by Tuareg guitarist and vocalist Koudede Maman, the last ones recorded shortly before his tragic death in a car crash while traveling to Niger from Burkina Faso last year. Koudede was a rising star in the nomadic community, a powerful performer and voice for the plight of his people against both the suppression of their ancient traditions and the rise of modern nation-states that usurp the natural resources of the land which the nomadic people desperately need. Most of Koudede's music was created in strife, but sought to create unity in a tumultuous region that saw very little of it. Though listening to him perform, one can only truly sense pure joy. A beautiful and heartbreaking release.
With all the recent reissues of lost '70s West African musical gems, it's important to remember that there is amazing music being made RIGHT NOW over there, of course. And with so many of today's indie bands like Animal Collective and Vampire Weekend borrowing so much from African music its nice to go right to the source and hear some brand new sounds from that region, that are overflowing with such beauty and the rich tradition of storytelling through song that has long been a part of Ngoni culture.
Bassekou Kouyate has been a major player in the West African music scene for years, from back in his days playing in a trio with Keletigui Diabate and Toumani Diabati and then branching out to form his own ensemble, where he has invented and perfected his own instrument known as the bass ngoni, which has the ability to reach such rich harmonic states of sound. On I Speak Fula, the first release on Sub Pop's new international imprint Next Ambiance, Kouyate and his band show how rich, peaceful yet trance inducing the music they create can be. With guest spots from his former musical partner Toumani Diabate as well as vocals from Vieux Farka Toure on a few tracks, this is such an amazing display of some of the most talented musicians in West Africa today. So much on the record reminds us of some of our favorite releases on Terp, like Lanaya or Djibril Diabate, only with the addition of some seriously enchanting vocals. The first, fantastic release from a new label that definitely seems poised to bring us more great unfiltered sounds from across the globe. So good!
Bassekou Kouyate is like the Steve Vai of Mali. About as close as you'll get to a shredder. His instrument of choice the ngoni, an African lute which is an early ancestor of the banjo. Bassekou builds his own ngonis, at at some point decided he just didn't have enough strings, so started adding MORE, and eventually formed Ngoni Ba, the first ever group formed around FOUR ngonis, augmented by percussion and of course soulful stirring vocals, but it's the ngonis that are the star. Apparently, when Bassekou was a young man, he observed guitar players moving to the front of the stage to solo, and as luck would have it, Bassekou had outfitted his ngoni with a strap, and while most ngoni players traditionally sat to play, when it came time for his solo, he stood up, headed for the front of the stage and proceeded to blow everyone away. Signaling his radical intentions for the instrument. He also developed his own unique style of picking, a unique version of slide guitar technique as well, a style that was quickly adopted by a new crop of young ngoni players in Mali.
Jama Ko is the latest from Kouyate and his Ngoni Ba, and is easily the best thing we've heard. His Sub Pop records (!) didn't quite capture the raw energy and emotion, but here, the songs are dreamy, haunting, emotional, passionate, the vocals a huge part of the sound, with the ngonis weaving a lush melodic backdrop, but it's when the ngonis take center stage that things get really good, the sound very reminiscent in places of Konono No.1, the lead ngoni, super distorted and buzzy, unfurling wild tangles of melody, but every song here is incredible, the sound of four ngonis divine, easily slipping into wild psychedelic swirls, with at least half of the record spent in some sort of Afro-psych mode, but just as easily, weaving soft lushly layered textures, over which the group lays down swoonsome minor key melodies, and delivers heartfelt vocal driven Afro pop dreaminess. So great!
