What a moving set of songs! Ali Farka Toure recorded this record shortly before he passed away, along with the immensely talented and soulful kora master Toumani Diabate. There is a mournful and graceful feeling to this record for sure, Ali Farka knew he was near the end of his life and these songs are filled with such patient, beautiful, and trance inducing sounds. Toure's classic guitar stylings touch on such tender and raw emotions while Diabate adds a warm bed of sound to flesh it all out, yet there is a stark and stripped down approach to these songs that really makes them that much more powerful. With such intricate, delicate and purposeful playing, along with Toure's emotional presence felt so strongly throughout the record, you are reminded what true blues really sounds like. Diabate has the special gift of being capable of making music that is totally therapuetic and healing and soothing, and that matched with Toure laying down his last songs to tape, makes this such a moving, entrancing and completely beautiful album. Highly recommended!
A gorgeous record of African folk music from this legendary Malian singer, documenting a series of collaborations between friends, recorded casually, field recording style, at a family member's house. Toure would meet with each friend, hang out, drink tea and choose a song the first day, then the next day, the two would record the song, giving themselves only two takes, in order to capture the energy and spontaneity of the moment. Originally, the producer intended to mix these songs with the sounds of the street and various interviews, to create a more historical document of the music, the time and the place, but once the recordings were finished, they decided the songs were too good to mess with.
And good is an understatement, the songs here are gorgeous, emotional, intimate, passionate, and quite simple, but so powerful, generally just two instruments and one or two voices, the instruments locked into looped cyclical melodies, super trancelike and hypnotic, while the vocals soar over the top. The opener is incredible, the two guitar wound into intricate harmonies and dizzying counterpoint, the vocals lush and soulful, and when the song shifts, and the guitars get even more tangled, and the second vocal comes in, it's so intense, we've listened to that first song about 20 times now.
The other collaborations are just as moving, the vocal interplay incredible, and the various permutations of dueling guitars fantastic, the sound shifting from traditional African folk, to desert blues, to something more American influenced, but all infused with Toure's spirit and style. Anyone who's been digging the various African releases on Sublime Frequencies, or any of the Tinariwen records, will definitely dig this too.
Vieux Farka Toure's music resonates with a strength, power and wisdom well beyond his years. While the shoes he's had to fill being the son of the late great Ali Farka Toure are quite enormous he's done so with an equally gifted ability to create songs that ring with a universal truth and strength that anyone can understand no matter what language you speak. We were instant believers in after hearing his debut a couple years ago and our appreciation of him grew when we saw him live opening for Tinariwen at the Palace Of Fine Arts shortly after that record came out. There was no doubt that this was a man filled with passion, remarkable guitar playing skills and a voice that is both peaceful and commanding of attention. Fondo is further proof that we will be hearing great music from Vieux for many years to come. While continuing the great tradition of Mali music that his dad helped bring to the ears of many across the globe, he is carrying on that legacy with a richness all his own.
Cheesy remixes, unfortunately.
Two new releases this week, from this relatively new world music label, whose past releases have totally blown us away, in particular, a collection of songs from legendary musician, Yoro Sibide, master of the ngoni, a traditional African stringed instrument, but almost more importantly, a donso, one of the traditional hunters of Mali, a mysterious group of men who live separated from the rest of society, the music of the donso, performed to inspire the other donsos for the hunt, epic tales of battles fought and won, lives lost, and worlds gone but not forgotten. Sibide is particularly relevant as both of these new releases on Yaala Yaala are records by student apprentices of the master Sibide, who spent years learning the way of the donsos, as well as of course, the music passed down from generation to generation.
Unlike Toba Seydou, featured on the other Yaala Yaala release on this list, who tracked down Sibide with the intention of becoming his apprentice, Abdoulaye Traore, learned to sing and play as a child, at the foot of his father, who eventually gave up music to return to farming, while Abdoulaye continued on, only to eventually be discovered during a performance, by Sibide, who was so impressed, he specifically requested that Abdoulaye become his apprentice. He studied for years and eventually become Sibide's main accompanist. This cd gathers up his first seven cassette releases, and again like Tora Seydou, Abdoulaye's music bears a striking resemblance to his master's, as well as to Tora Seydou's, the same sort of buzzing low strings, locked into repetitive grooves, looped sounding, repeated over and over, totally trance inducing, the vocals slipping from passionate wail, to hushed croon, the percussion super minimal, each track, a single riff, one part, the percussion and ngoni in perfect unison, in fact, in some ways, Abdoulaye' music is the most hypnotic of the three, the most stripped down and minimal, but equally as passionate and inspiring, spiritual and transcendent, these sounds, this music, is so magical, we could listen to this forever, even removed from its traditions, existing simply as notes and rhythms, these songs still retain the music's history, the blood and tears, the years of struggle and survival, of life and death, of birth and rebirth, imbuing the sound with an ineffable energy, a mysterious power, which is a rarity in most music for sure, and makes these sounds so special.
Two new releases this week, from this relatively new world music label, whose past releases have totally blown us away, in particular, a collection of songs from legendary musician, Yoro Sibide, master of the ngoni, a traditional African stringed instrument, but almost more importantly, a donso, one of the traditional hunters of Mali, a mysterious group of men who live separated from the rest of society, the music of the donso, performed to inspire the other donsos for the hunt, epic tales of battles fought and won, lives lost, and worlds gone but not forgotten. Sibide is particularly relevant as both of these new releases on Yaala Yaala are records by student apprentices of the master Sibide, who spent years learning the way of the donsos, as well as of course, the music passed down from generation to generation.
Tora Seydou Traore became obsessed with the music of the hunters as a child, so much so that when his father sent him out to care for the flock, he would build instruments from old junk and bicycle parts, and play music until his father would find him and beat him. And so it went until Traore went away to school, and then later decided to follow his destiny and track down Sibide, to learn from the master. Which he did, until he graduated five years late, and began to take on apprentices of his own. And of course it makes sense that Traore's music would bear such a strong resemblance to that of Sibide, warm and lush, dark and hypnotic, the buzzing strings locked into looping grooves, underpinned by simple percussion, with Traore's clear, strong powerful vocals, sometimes soaring dramatically, other times more subdued and crooned, often engaged in call and response with a chorus, the melodies spidery and minor key, the sound minimal and muted and so gorgeously trancelike, lots of layered buzz, warm whirling rumbles, minimal percussion, hand drums, shakers, unfurling clouds of sizzle and whir, a haunting cloud of soft washed out buzz wrapped around the tangled low end melodies, Traore's music, and the music of the donsos, so drone-y and minimal, so gorgeously haunting, utterly hypnotic, and so emotionally resonant, truly some of the most fantastic spiritual music we've heard...
'Mystical goat dancer' is an apt describer of Otha Turner, an ageless creation of the Mississippi earth whose musical mastery is over a simple fife carved out of a bamboo cane fishing pole. Together with his Rising Star Fife & Drum band, Turner has for years fashioned shrill whistles around the militant snare march of the drum core, reconstituting the rhythmic hypnotism of lost slave songs. This album is a much more sedate outing for Turner as he has been joined by a handful of Senegalese musicians, beautifully linking the two divergant African sounds. Turner's domineering presence is neccessary for the success of these fusions, but at times, he seems to wander off (to feed the chickens? after all this was recorded at his farm) on two tracks which snap back to traditional Senegalese rhythms. Regardless, an excellent document.
The mighty Sound Way label (the fine folks who brought us the killer Nigeria Special compilations) is back with another fantastic reissue of classic West African popular music, this time documenting the mid-1970s output of the enigmatic and flamboyant Sir Victor Uwaifo, the guitar-boy superstar! You might recognize Uwaifo from his appearance on the Nigeria 70: Lagos Jump compilation where his track "Dododo (Ekassa 1)" was a real skirt blower. These days, when most of us have access to this kind of music only through curated compilations featuring dozens of performers, it's a rare treat to get a more well-rounded picture of a single artist; big ups to Sound Way for delivering the goods!
The majority of tracks on this collection are based around Uwaifo's unique hybrid of the traditional rhythm of the 'ekassa' coronation dance with highlife instrumentation. The result is something joyous, funky, and soulful that manages to maintain a laid-back, upbeat feel that is distinct from the frenetic rush of Afrobeat and the other scenes happening in mid-'70s Lagos. In fact, there's a sweet, classic pop element to Uwaifo's songwriting that has more in common with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens than it does with the American funk, soul and disco that inspired his contemporaries. Valens is actually a pretty good jumping off point for comparison, as the electrified version of the ekassa rhythm lends a Latin flourish to the music that recalls Valens' Chicano rock styles saturated with fuzz, wah and a distinctly Nigerian rhythmic sensibility.
Unsurprisingly, it's Uwaifo's guitar playing that stand out as the real centerpiece of the record as it skips from traditional highlife accompaniment to psych-tinged, fuzzed-out solos to primitive delay and wah-wah experimentalism, sometimes all within the same song! Uwaifo's jangling open-string solos, jarringly nimble riffing, and ability to switch effortlessly between rhythm and lead again recall Buddy Holly and also classic US surf rock (in fact, the track "Agho" goes so far as to quote parts of "Tequila" - weird, but fantastic!), but there's a lot more going on than that. Check out "Igboroho (Ekassa 24)" to hear Uwaifo pushing his guitar into fractured, no-wave territory; given that it still sounds completely freaked out now, it must've been thoroughly mind-expanding at the time.
As with all things from Sound Ways, this disc comes with lavish packaging; meticulously researched and compiled liner notes replete with archival photographs, album art; and song-by-song gloss by Uwaifo himself. It's a fantastic package highly recommended for anyone who's been enjoying the goldmine of reissues of African popular musics we've been seeing over the past year. So good!
The mighty Sublime Frequencies label keeps the impossibly cool comps coming, this their second collection of music from Algeria. The first focused on a very specific musical form from the region called Rai, whereas this new one is all about folk and pop music from the same era, and while on the surface it may seem more 'mainstream', it's still fantastically quirky, funky, groovy, and exotic, and all over the sonic map.
The seventies were a surprisingly good time for music in Algeria, 45's in particular, which was remarkable considering the socialist government at the time, and the legions of cops, and bureaucrats, and censors no doubt hell bent on suppressing any sort of social movement, and yet, music flourished, certainly a response to 'the man', who perhaps let these hippies have their music, assuming it might relieve some of the social tension of the time. Regardless, the 'hairies' embraced this sound, and were digging these very American influenced sounds, fuzzed out garage rock, groovy exotica, plenty of buzzing sitars, warbly organs, twangy surf guitar, wild percussion, male and female vox, some tracks sound literally straight out of the USA, others are fantastic hybrids of Western music and more traditional local sounds, but all the music included here is lively and powerful and personal and imbued with an energy that went well beyond just music and sound. And sure some of the jams are schmaltzy, almost easy listening, but even then, listening to those tracks, dressing wild and growing your hair our, was still extremely subversive and a serious rebellion, especially considering most of this music was officially suppressed. Like all Sublime Frequencies comps, so fantastic, and leaves us hankering for more more more!
And packaged as always, sublimely (ahem), in a heavy full color gatefold sleeve, with a super striking black and white portrait of an Algerian couple in their best rock and roll finery on the front, and inside, plenty of rare photos, liner notes and notes on each song and performer.
Another winner from Sublime Frequencies. And while we made sure to stress that past "vinyl-only" were indeed vinyl only, lately, those vinyl releases have been slowly making it to cd. BUT, for the vinyl folks out there, these do disappear fast, and fetch big bucks on eBay once they're gone, so you're not gonna want to snooze on this one. Listening to this again, now, for maybe the 20th time in 2 days, it's becoming clear we'll probably have to make this a Record Of The Week as soon as it comes out on cd, but for now, even though it's only a highlight, it really couldn't be more of a MUST OWN.
And like many of the Sublime Frequencies before it, we find it hard to not think that maybe folks don't need to be making so much music, releasing so many records, when so much amazing outrageously creative music is already being and has been made all over the world, for so long, much of it never heard outside of a very few people. Maybe we should have some sort of national policy, where bands can turn in their instruments, and in exchange get a recorder, a plane ticket, and an expense account, with which they can roam the world bringing back some of that unheard and lost music. Heck, sign us up right now!
Anyway, this new release is a collection of Rai music from the early seventies, from Algeria, and these particular cuts are samples of some of the sort of "outlaw" Rai performers, a modern strain that has been neglected and ignored, and takes this classic Algerian music form, and adds electric guitar, trumpets, wah wah pedal, and whips it all up into an infectious brew equal parts Ethiopiques, Bollywood and garage rock. Or something close to that. This stuff is truly hard to describe, and the liner notes, while informative, are printed on an eye popping blue on red old school 3-D colored background which makes the text swim and sway before your eyes. And offer more on the history and the players than what Rai music actually is (there's a good description on Wikipedia). But for the purpose of this review, as it should be, we'll just focus on the sound. And what a sound!
Warm whirring organ drones, trumpets EVERYWHERE, really the defining sound, wild chaotic tribal drumming, crooned dramatic vocals, groovy, soulful, funky, raw and lo-fi, like a garage rock Ethiopiques, but with a strangely raw Bollywood vibe, the trumpets peppering the murky grooves with strange fanfares and jazzy melodies, here and there distorted guitars surface, wrapped in wah wah, reverb and echo all over the place, some songs super frenzied, others laid back and dreamy, Indian melodies draped over almost surfy grooves, really pretty fantastic. Hard to imagine that folks who have been digging all the Sublime Frequencies releases, or the Yaala Yaala reissues won't go crazy for this stuff.
Group Doueh, Group Inerane, and now this, a pretty mind blowing, near perfect, far out world music three-fer, and that's not even counting the 30+ release that came before. ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED.
LIMITED TO 1500 COPIES, 180 gram vinyl, super thick gatefold sleeve, full color, with tons of photos and liner notes inside.
The last Honest Jon's compilation we carried focussed on the roots of Congolese Rumba through a wave of Latin influence on the region from the thirties to the fifties. The latest Honest Jon's compilation, Africa Boogaloo, expands upon that concept by tracing Latin music's influential trajectory from the fifties to the seventies all along Africa's Western Coast from the Congo to Senegal.
Culled from rare recordings by both celebrated artists as well as the little known, this compilation focuses not so much on the single artist but the bigger dance bands like Orchestra Baobab, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou, Orchestre OK Jazz, and one of the major stars of Afro-beat, Manu Dibango (here performing the title track with Le Grand Kalle and Don Gonzalo). Boogaloo being a hybrid style of soul, R&B, mambo and various other forms of Afro-Cuban music, it makes sense that not only would it be popular in Africa whose various indigenous musical styles inspired Latin music in the first place, but that it would proliferate further into modern fusions of various African musical forms. The constant cross-cultural influence is amazingly uncanny as well as delightfully infectious!
When we first ordered this, we imagined it would be a compilation of rapping in African music, or more like the roots of modern rap in Africa, but instead this is a collection of some of the most popular contemporary rap groups in Africa, and it's pretty great. It's interesting to hear how the music, while obviouly reminscent of American hip hop, incorporates all sorts of traditional African musics as well as modern music (especially Mbalax or African commercial pop), as well as rapping in French and Wolof and a heavy political/religious bent as 90% of African rappers are Muslim. As a simple hip hop compilation, this stands up pretty well. Fans of MC Solaar and the Le Flow hip hop collection from a few years back will love this. But as a musical and sociological document, complete with Trikont's excellent liner notes, this is essential.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Samy Ben Redjeb, the man behind the Analog Africa label, allegedly went through some 3000 records before picking the 14 tracks that make up this amazing compilation of mid-'70s sounds from Benin and Togo - the two smaller countries that happen to be sandwiched between Nigeria and Ghana, two of the dominant cultural forces in African music at that time. As much as the music included on African Scream Contest shows the influence of those neighboring heavyweights, there are plenty of other elements coming into the mix. You can hear Afro-Cuban horn blasts and clave rhythms alongside samba grooves and James Brown funk. That you can hear blues and soul being filtered through highlife, Afrobeat, and even traditional choral music is one of the things that makes this period of African music so exciting: no one influence holds any more sway than any other, and the result is something totally unique that manages to be strangely familiar while sounding like nothing you've ever heard in your life.
Like the title says, this stuff is definitely raw - you can hear musicians who not only taught themselves how to play, but in doing so created their own culture, national identity and music. For every influence pulled from elsewhere in the world (be it US funk or Brazilian rhythms), there's something distinctly regional through which it gets filtered; for example, Benin is the birthplace of voodoo, and that must surely have been an influence on the sense of wild abandon and frenzy that this music manages to capture so perfectly. Simply put, this is heavy stuff!
The standard for these kinds of compilations has been set incredibly high by labels like Strut, Sound Way, Soul Jazz and the like, but if anything Analog Africa have raised the bar even higher. It took three years of research, crate digging, interviews and detective work to put this compilation together and it shows: this presentation of the music, liner notes and archival materials is meticulous, loving and borders on obsessive. This is an amazing collection of songs that once again shows the incredible depth of cultural output happening in Africa in the '60s and '70s. It's a great time to be a fan of these musics, and this stunning compilation shows us exactly why. Recommended!
A collection that only begins to scratch the surface of the rarely heard of underground jazz scene in South Africa. Compiled by Jake Behnan, "Afrika Underground" covers "jazz funk & fusion" stuff from the mid-seventies to the early eighties, from the
In addition to reissuing their Ghana Soundz collection, Sound Way has put together an additional 12 rare tracks of afro-beat from Nigeria. Included along with mainstays Fela Kuti and Orlando Julius are several lesser known (this side of the pond anyhoo) groups like The Mebusas, The Don Issac Ezekiel Combination, The Martins Brothers Dance Band and more. Like Ghana Soundz, this CD comes with a thick booklet of info, including artist bios, and album art repros.
NOW ON VINYL!
In addition to reissuing their Ghana Soundz collection, Sound Way has put together an additional 12 rare tracks of afro-beat from Nigeria. Included along with mainstays Fela Kuti and Orlando Julius are several lesser known (this side of the pond anyhoo) groups like The Mebusas, The Don Issac Ezekiel Combination, The Martins Brothers Dance Band and more. Comes with a thick booklet of info, including artist bios, and album art repros.
There aren't many instruments that we would want to hear a whole record of. But drums are an exception. Drums seem to be the unifying instrument for all music lovers. Whether it's hip-hop, Japanese noise, krautrock, funk, afro-beat, etc. we all love hearing the drummer get wicked! There is something so mystical and powerful about the sound of drums that its no wonder that they have often been used as the main instrument in so many mystical & spiritual settings. Recorded by Soul Jazz in Cuba at the ICAIC studios these recordings demonstrate the African-influence on the drumming used in Cuban religious cults and ceremonies. Much like the amazing Voodoo Drums, and Spirits Of Life comps Soul Jazz put out a few years ago this is another great collection of frenzied drumming for a higher calling.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Yet another collection of classic 70's afro-funk. Subtitled "Motherload From the Motherland", the 13 tracks here are certainly a goldmine of afro-funk. Some are in the vein of Fela Kuti, some are bizarre interpretations of the James Brown sound, and some are akin to the instrumental tracks you might find in a seventies film score. Featuring cuts by the likes of Manu Dibango, Matata, Dick Khoza, Assagai, and much more. All the tracks were mastered directly from vinyl sources, so along with the usual surface noise anomalies you get a couple songs where the lp's hole was punched off center and the track is a bit warbled. Rather charming, I think. The bad or, to be sure, truly sucky thing about this compilation is its complete lack of liner notes whatsoever -- you get a track listing and that's it. I'm not opposed to quasi-bootleg re-issues, but if someone's going to go through the trouble of archiving the tracks they should at least give a little background info as to their origin, maybe even some bios on the more obscure artists.
Now on vinyl!
Analog Africa does it again! The hardest working Afro-beat reissue label brings us another amazing comp of psych-tinged, long-lost Afro-beat, this time from Ghana and Togo recorded between 1972-1979. Raw, sultry, and totally ass-shaking, pretty much all of the tracks have never been released outside the region. Funky Latin rhythms, organ-driven psych, and cosmic soulful percussive trance-outs by 11 bands. Comes with amazing 44 page booklet with pictures and histories. Wow, deluxe package, incredible music. We can go on, but do we really need to? Analog Africa hasn't let us down yet. 100 percent Solid! Trust.
Analog Africa does it again! The hardest working Afro-beat reissue label brings us another amazing comp of psych-tinged, long-lost Afro-beat, this time from Ghana and Togo recorded between 1972-1979. Raw, sultry, and totally ass-shaking, pretty much all of the tracks have never been released outside the region. Funky Latin rhythms, organ-driven psych, and cosmic soulful percussive trance-outs by 11 bands. Comes with amazing 44 page booklet with pictures and histories. Wow, deluxe package, incredible music. We can go on, but do we really need to? Analog Africa hasn't let us down yet. 100 percent Solid! Trust.
Kona records presents a new collection of Afro-Soul and Funk tracks taken from the late sixties to the early seventies. 11 tracks from 11 groups that arose out of the Pan African identity movement in the 60's, hailing from Sierra Leone, Kenya, Zaire, Ghana and elsewhere. Super tight, ready to explode afro-funk tracks that will make your butt shake are what you can expect when you put this
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First in a new series from the same label that brought us the Ethiopiques compilations. Influenced by such elements as Congolese highlife and music from Brazil & the Caribbean, some of the musicians here have even worked with such Pan-African stars as Rochereau, Sam Mangwana and Franco. The Zairian style is evident here: lots of lush hollow body electric guitar with tons of reverb. And yet both the Portuguese & Caribbean influences are equally apparent in the melodic lines, and the language - all in Portuguese.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Second in a new series from the same label that brought us the Ethiopiques compilations. Influenced by such elements as Congolese highlife and music from Brazil & the Caribbean, some of the musicians here have even worked with such Pan-African stars as Rochereau, Sam Mangwana and Franco. The Zairian style is also evident here: lots of lush hollow body electric guitar with tons of reverb.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Third in a new series from the same label that brought us the Ethiopiques compilations. So far, *this* installment might be the best of the bunch. Lovely, fun, '70s African pop.
Even if we hadn't already been familiar with the first volume in the Angola Soundtrack series, we would have been pretty curious about this new one. The cover art, to start with: a super psychedelic, color tinted image of four women with spiked out antenna-like hair, and in the foreground, a hulking figure, head shaved and shirtless, wreathed in shadow and smoking a cigar, his belly hanging over his belt, it almost looks like a still from some crazy psychedelic arthouse film, and then there's the compilation's subtitle: Hypnosis, Distortion & Other Sonic Innovations - all right! And while it's maybe not as freaky and far out as all that might lead one to believe, it's still pretty fantastic, and the perfect follow up to the first volume for sure.
The first track should have most folks totally smitten, an instrumental psychedelic groove, all spidery guitar melodies, some wah wah here and there, and a seriously Latin sounding rhythm, which is not all that surprising, considering that we discovered with the first volume, that Latin music was a huge influence on the Angola sound, and that's super obvious throughout volume two as well. As we mentioned in that original review, having no context, we really might have assumed that this music was in fact from Central or South America, but it's that fusion of Latin and African that makes the sound so unique, so vibrant, joyous and alive. A lot of the tracks have a big band Afro-Jazz vibe, but some sound like fuzzed out Afro-Latin garage rock, others more balladic and croony, and still others almost like they could be music from Italian Westerns, but all the tracks here are incredible, from energetic and joyously raucous to moody and melancholic, such fantastic stuff, and like the first volume, on heavy heavy rotation, which as always, is the best recommendation of all...
Like all Analog Africa releases, the packaging is fantastic, the aforementioned cover art, a heavy slipcover. Inside, the disc in a full color digipak, the accompanying book, massive, overflowing with extensive liner notes on the artists, the songs, the region, as well as the music and culture of the time, tons of rare photos too.
If no one told us this music was from Angola, we would have guessed it came from somewhere around Central or South America. A lot of this music reminds us of those great Panama compilations on Soundway, and as it turns out, Angola had the same cross-pollination of Latin-based musical influences from neighboring regions that Panama experienced with African-influenced music during the same time period. This compilation focuses on the electric bands, vanguard singers and the two significant recording companies that led to an explosive scene of musical forces in Angola during the late sixties and early seventies. Traditional African music from the Luanda Islands, psychedelic guitar-based music from neighboring Congo, Latin rhythms, the relentless beats of Carnival music and old school Caribbean Merengue, combine for some uplifting and uproariously joyous music. If you need some movement and heat to cure you of the winter blues, this set is for you!
More fuckin' weird animal sounds? Fuck Yeah!!! You must have noticed by now that we here at Aquarius go a little nuts when we get a good recording of some animals kicking out the hella mad squeals, growls, hoots, clicks and snorts. And when their sounds are unlike anything we're likely to hear on a walk through the Marin headlands or in Tilden Park, we get pretty excited. What's more, many of the animals on this collection -- for those who haven't heard them before -- sound nothing like what one's intuition would suggest. For instance, who would think that the rhinoceros, weighing in at 2000 pounds and capable of goring any one of us like a twinkie with its horn, would have a larger vocabulary than a series of menacing snorts? But au contraire, the rhino -- as captured here -- has, in its mating call, one of the cutest inquisitive mewls you'll likely ever hear. It sounds almost like it's on the phone giving positive reinforcement to the hippopotamus on the other end complaining about the way the lion has been acting of late. Or how about the Hyrax, a small East African mammal about the size of a rabbit (and a distant relative of the elephant of all things), that makes a loud growling noise not unlike someone trying to start a chainsaw. But that's not all, you get the Vervet monkey with its complex vocabulary announcing to all its mates that a leopard is on the prowl. And not to seem biased towards the primates' side of the story, the producers also included the leopard's growling complaints about the monkeys' behavior. And that's just the beginning! You also get Zebras (they sound a lot more like coyotes or dogs than horses), Wildebeest (think frogs), Lion (say no more), Hyena (god, hyenas are freaks! no matter how many times you hear them, they never lose their charm), Wild-Dog (someone scrubbing a plate glass window clean with a gerbil), Silver-Backed Jackal (parrot?), Elephant (elephant), and last -- but certainly not least -- the hippopotamus (on the other end of the line with the rhino.) Originally released by Nonesuch as part of their Explorer series in 1973, it'd take the most tenacious DJ to find a copy of this on vinyl so pick it up on disc today. Absolutely essential!
*MISSISSIPPI ALERT*
Another awesome vinyl compilation of amazing sounds from the golden era of Ethiopian music, this time culled from Ethiopiques Vols. 24 and 25.
The second you put the needle on the record, you'll be transported, and in fact, the sounds you hear may sound strangely familiar, as legendary Ethiopian vocalist Seyfou Yohannes croons over a track we've definitely heard before, on Ethiopiques 2 we think, but it hardly matters, Yohannes' vocals transform the song completely, still smokey and sexy, but reimagined and reinterpreted. And fantastic!
The bulk of Ethiopian records were produced in a single 10 year period, 500 singles, 30 lps, all produced between 1969 and 1978, of those, the tiny Amha label released 103 two song 45's and a dozen lps, between '69 and '75, collecting various tracks that were attempts to modernize traditional Ethiopian music, without radically altering it. Folk music, wedding songs, nursery rhymes, traditional melodies, songs that have been passed down and passed on over generations, some musics and melodies so revered that they have been officially elevated to the status of "musical modes of reference" by official doctrine(!), all borrowed and reinterpreted by various singers and ensembles over the years.
The tracks here are almost all acoustic, utilizing traditional instruments, as well as piano, mandolin and accordion, but to these ears it sounds fantastic, as good as ever, that sound that is so immediately recognizable as Ethiopian, horns and drums and percussion and handclaps, and of course the voices, it's so much about the vocalists, especially here, soulful croons, female back up vox, lots of call and response, deep and rough, smooth and silky, but always so expressive and emotional and powerful,
But they are all incredible, of course, most of the names are new to us, no Mahmoud Ahmed, no Getatchew Mekurya, a track from Mulatu Astatke, but more folks like Seyfou Yohannes, Ayalew Mesfin, Getatchew Kassa, Tamrat Molla, the sound though is so distinctly Ethiopian, warm languid horns, moody minor key piano, simple shuffling rhythms. and of course the vocals, lush crooning, the perfect compliment to the music's dark sultry mystery. There seem to be two distinct styles represented, the soulful funky slow burning grooves, haunting, late night, sexy, and the more festive and funky, a sort of Ethiopian reinterpretation of American rhythm and blues, with soaring sunshiney melodies, acoustic guitars, and more horns, both are irresistible, and anyone who has even been dabbling in this series or the other Mississippi vinyl reissues, will dig this big time. Just perfect for the impending warm summer days, and lazy summer nights...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Nigerian dance band highlife with a wild edged jauntiness and a go-for-the-jugular instinct for mixing local rhythms and melodies with jazz tinged horn solos and Congo-influenced guitar work.
Analog Africa strikes gold once again! Just when we thought we might need a little break from '70s African psych/funk reissues, we're reminded again just how much amazing music was recorded without seeing wide release, sounds that so deserves to be heard and blasted loud and proud! This time out Analog Africa put their crate digging skills to work on the raw beginnings of the Burkina Faso sounds recorded between 1974-1979. With its geographical roots running through the Sahel, these sounds incorporate Afro-funk, Islamic rhythms, and Malian guitar sounds. It might sound cliche, but there is really no other way to describe the songs on this collection without using words like smoking, blazing, raw, and on fire. Not a record you want to listen to softly, these are songs you want to blast as even the slow burners on here cut right to the core. We had never heard any of these sixteen tracks before, and with the awesome 44 page booklet that accompanies this release we now get to not only listen but learn about amazing music we had very little knowledge of beforehand. Isn't that what being a music lover is all about, so damn rewarding!
Another fantastically curated collection of magical and mysterious and mostly unheard songs from Honest Jon's, these vintage recordings from East Africa, recorded between the years 1938 and 1957, and categorized as 'native records', in that this was music that was intended for sale to native Africans, not the white colonialists or various traders or laborers, and these recordings helped capture and preserve popular music, the various styles popular before the influence of imported sounds from abroad and various immigrants. These sounds were specific to various villages and represented many different languages and styles. The other cool thing about these performances, is that they were specifically by non professionals, since earning a living making music was nearly impossible, instead these were regular folks, who were often called upon to entertain, at weddings or parties, at markets or for various rituals. The liner notes, like all Honest Jon's liner notes, go into incredible detail, about the various styles of music, the difficulties in translating the languages, the musicians, the performances, the recording processes, it reads like a primer on East African music, and like it should be part of a college course, in fact, we often think smart schools would be snapping these guys up to teach courses in world music, but beyond the background, it's the sounds that count, and the sounds here are incredible, so strange and lovely and mysterious and at once warm and intimate and emotional and totally alien and fantastical.
The first track is the perfect example, a super hypnotic stretch of relentless vocalizing over a barely audible string melody, the sound distorted, the vocals more like testifying, it's not until the very end of the track where the vocals drop out that you can hear how strangely frantic the string playing really is. And from there on out, there's never a moment that's less that totally wonderfully lovely, whether the sound is super melodic and folky, or minimal and rhythmic, buzzy and droney, moody and emotional, we lack the vocabulary to truly describe these sounds, other to say that they move us, and that they're so absolutely beautiful, sometimes haunting and mournful, other times effusive and celebratory, always breathtaking.
The cd comes in a beautiful hardcover style book, with a massive booklet inside, filled with extensive liner notes and vintage photos. The vinyl version is spread out over two double lps, the first with the same title as the double cd contains all the music from the first disc, while the second, containing the music from the second disc, is titled Bellyachers, Listen!
The third volume of unearthed African music treasures from the 1970s, tracks so rare that they originally only appeared in TV shows or in library archives. Yum! Of the three volumes of this stuff that Comet has reissued, this the jazziest of the lot, filled with boogieing organ and piano. This is true "rare groove" for people who get off on using phrases like that (you know who you are). Here we have music from Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, etc, and includes a great track with the Art Ensemble of Chicago!!
No doubt about it, the legacy and inspiration of Fela Kuti's music ranks right up their with The Beatles and James Brown in terms of how much of an impact and lasting impression it has left on music of future generations. Without Fela there wouldn't have been Afro-beat as we know it. And luckily so many of the musicians he has influenced produce sounds with the same kind of fire, intensity and rhythm that he laid the blueprints for. This awesome compilation brings together the best of Fela's disciples from many areas on the globe including Nigeria, Columbia, Ghana, Trinidad, New York, and more.
This is exactly how we like our Afro-beat, raw, super charged and full of uncompromising power. It's impossible not to move to these rich groove filled burners. What's extra awesome and exciting is that most of these artists are new to our ears, besides Daktaris, the Whitefield Brothers,and Bola Johnson we really hadn't heard of many of these folks and damn they are all blowing us away! Lever Brothers, Gay Flamingoes, Lisandro Meza, Segun Bucknoh, Phirpo Y Sus Caribes....now we want to get our hands on all of their stuff! Most of the tracks on here are previously unreleased and while the cd is packaged lovingly in a small hardcover book with photos and liner notes, the vinyl is packaged in a totally amazing over the top box set with the music divvied up over four 10" records with a 24 page book packed with the same amazing photos and liner notes. So on fire and so highly recommended!
Black Stars: Ghana's Hiplife Generation is a challenging, and possibly rewarding collection of tunes from the last five odd years comprised of, as the title would indicate, "hiplife" music from Ghana. But what is hiplife? you may ask, and apparently that's the question this compilation sets out to answer. Clearly, as is often the case in the game of inventing and naming new musical genres, we're dealing with the sometimes awkward, and other times ecstatic middle ground between two already canonized genres, in this case "highlife" and "hiphop". Stateside, having recently savored and suffered contemporary permutations of highlife via The Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend, as well as receiving a handful of uncorruptably good vintage highlife collections from the Soundways label, it seems ripe time to check in with what's happening to highlife on its mother content. The results are mixed. In general the affair is very much an energetic and confused amalgam of hip-hop, dancehall, reggaeton, a little bit of textured bloop and bleep, sampled and looped highlife guitar, and even at times some of the spare synthesized organicism and mystique of dubstep. In all cases however, there is nothing of the gritty texture, glow, and blown out splendor of vintage highlife that has been so endlessly loved and fetishised in the United States. The palette is rigorously pop, and even at times, to our ears strikingly childish. Think Disney's somewhat jingoistic take on African music in the Lion King, or even for those deep lovers of early '90s cartoons, Tailspin! So, if that variety of positive freneticism is your bag, and you want to know what's up in Ghana, then come along. Also, if you're just in a curious and actively transcendent mood, you might enjoy this for its educational value as well. However, to all others, consider this a mere suggestion, not required listening.
Hip hop, called Bongo Flava in Tanzania, has had an odd inverted development in relation to its US mentor. Unlike the US where the genre started in the streets, only to be picked up by the middle class as its popularity spread, it was the children of the wealthy and elite in Tanzania who would bring back western hip hop initially that eventually would trickle down to the poor in Dar es Salaam. But it was the poor who put the creativity and effort into making a full-fledged Bongo Flava scene -- though the production resources are still in the hands of the few, which results in an industry not disimilar to Jamaica's burgeoning music industry in the early seventies. What's more, while the faces of American rap stars grace the walls of clubs (there are some nice photos of such included with the accompanying booklet) and music stalls are pasted with their promotional posters, it's the local Bongo Flava stars that top the charts in Dar es Salaam, not the Americans. This is partially out of a sense of national pride, but also to the fact that the Tanzanian listeners can understand the Swahili lyrics of the local singers, which makes them a great deal more compelling to listen to than someone they can't understand. Part of this sense of national spirit can be attributed to former president Julius K. Nyerere, the first president after the country acheived independence, who sought to unify the country, which included making the official language of Tanzania Swahili. Now, despite the derision of elder Tanzanians who see the music as hooligan's music, the Swahili spoken Bongo Flava can be heard almost everywhere in Dar es Salaam. The production on these tracks shows just how far the digital age and software based home recording studios have made it possible for those of minimum means to approach the production standards set by the well heeled studios of the west. CD comes with a thick booklet detailing the history of Bongo Flava and short bios on the included artists.
The first release from Afrodisiac Records, Booniay is a really fun comp of funk, afrobeat, and highlife from '70s West Africa. There's a lot of James Brown "heuh!" exclamations, a lot of Fela-style horns, a lot of smokin' groovy organs, and ridiculously
Originally released in 1983 as "Rhythms of the Grasslands: Music of Upper Volta, Volume II", as the companion volume to the release now known as "Savannah Rhythms". The music on this album, even more than most others in the African portion of the Nonesuch Explorer series, is dominated by percussion instruments: calabash, metal objects, hand clapping, and all manner of drums. Which isn't to say that there are no melodic instruments contained here. A jirkil (a one string lute) makes its appearance quite often, as do the occasional thumb pianos and, of course, voice.
Originally released in 1981 as "Rhythms of the Grasslands: Music of Upper Volta", the change to the more poetic "Burkina Faso" (meaning "Land of Upright Men") was bestowed upon the nation by its Marxist leader a year after this album was originally issued. Performed in ritual -- the editor stresses this music as being performed "'with' people, not 'for' them" -- from everyday activities such as harvesting in the fields to special events such as weddings, the music on this disc is as varied as the events it accompanies. The disc begins with a couple of great xylophone (or marimba) ensembles performing during a wedding celebration, but also featured on this disc are tracks including mouth harp and flute, fife and drums, chorus, one-stringed lute and calabash, gourd clarinet and rattles, and more xylophones. One little detail purchasers may note is that there apparently was a bit of a track listing screw up whereby four cuts don't match their corresponding descriptions, but determined buyers can easily figure out which tracks go with which descriptions (and who knows, this problem may be fixed in subsequent pressings.)
Recording the musical practices of other cultures is often extolled as a way of preserving those practices, as they seem to always inevitably become wiped out due to some form of "modernization" within the culture. Most often it seems that it's the multinational media conglomerates, the loud mouth of the United States, that has a bigger and bigger effect on culture everywhere as more and more people have television and radio. But sometimes it's something more directly horrific that has this detrimental effect on a culture and that makes the music that has been archived almost un-nerving to listen to. Such is this recording from Burundi made in 1974. Even at the time of the recording ethnic fighting had already resulted in the death of 200,000 Burundians. The Hutu of the Northwestern part of Burundi, where these tracks were recorded, that had not fled their country, have most likely been killed in the ensuing nearly 30 years of bloodshed. So the seemingly happy music contained on this disc belies the more sinister reality of its existense. No fewer than five of the tracks are tributes to then Tutsi president Michel Micombero, which were to be performed during rural political gatherings. Having said that, I hope that doesn't depress anyone enough not to pick this up. There's a great variety of excellent tracks on this disc ranging from beautful songs accompanied in various forms by ikembe (thumb piano), flute, drums as well as other stringed instruments (like the inanga which sounds like a stringed bass) to heavy drum corps songs. In particular, the song "Take Me Back To Mabayi" in which and old man accompanies himself on inanga and incorporating vocal effects reminds me of the late great Camerounian songwriter, poet, playwrite Francis Bebey. I wonder if Mr. Bebey picked up any tricks from Burundian musicians during his travels?
FINALLY REISSUED, ON VINYL FOR THE FIRST TIME! One of our early faves in the great Sublime Frequencies series, originally released in 2004 on (now out of print) compact disc. What we said back then...
Given the sheer volume of commercially available music that's come out of Mali (to say nothing of its West African neighbors, and the rest of the continent), one would think there would be a lot more field recordings of street musicians and the sundry other less commercially viable artists who don't attract the attention of the mainstream world music market. There certainly were labels such as John Storm Roberts' Original Music (R.I.P.) which had been hard at work on just that task many years ago, but recent years - what with "world beat" becoming a commercially viable genre targeted to the lowest common denominator - there's been less and less new, raw, unadulterated sounds to be had from the region. The first, in what is hopefully not the last, attempt from Sublime Frequencies to ameliorate this oversight comes from Tucker Martine. And what a nice collection of tracks it is. Recorded in the Fall of 1998 with, if we may say so, some incredibly nice field recording equipment, Bush Taxi Mali is like a really nice panoramic snapshot of music and sounds. The tracks range from miscellaneous street sounds, the dulcet tones of the kora (a bridged 21 stringed lute with a large calf-skin covered gourd resonator), fife and drum music, children singing and clapping, gorgeous acoustic guitar, and an absolutely frenetic wedding celebration with distorted bull horn amplification.
