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ZIETI
ZEMELEWA (GriGri Discs GRIGRI04)
Ivory Coast is in the news with their team's progress in the Africa Cup of Nations. The elephants' success is being widely celebrated as giants like Senegal go out with a whimper. Today I am digging some Ivorienne music that is also global in its sweep. Half of Zieti is Yeoue Narcisse, singer, and Tiende Laurent, guitar, but the big sound of the album indicates there's more going on here. There's a pleasant 70s feel to the music, with organ, trap drums, live horns, and insistent bass. Apparently drummer Alex Owre and guitarist Michael Shereikis, the other half, met the two Ivoriens while living in Abidjan and developed a musical rapport with them. They jammed for a couple of years and performed on the beach adjoining Abidjan's shanty town, then finally went into the studio to record a ten-track album. Unfortunately those tapes vanished after the Americans had been repatriated in 1999 and the country descended into civil war in 2002. So they started over, by remote. After the Ivoriens' songs were recorded, the tapes were mailed to Silver Spring, Maryland and the other instruments were overdubbed. There is nevertheless a live feel, and it would be great to think this album will succeed and allow the musicians to actually play on the same stage at the same time. At Studio EZ, Owre's drums were added; at The Treehouse Brian Simms added keyboards and accordion. Then at Rootstock Studios we find Shereikis with his guitar, bass, and percussion, as well as djembes, saxophones, and other percussionists drawn from his bandmates in Chopteeth and emigrés in D.C. From a small stumbling start a grand opus has emerged. The full sound is rich, the songs go from lovelorn ballads to out and out jamdowns. The musical rapport is intact, across an ocean. And a wonderful side-project has developed, which is to send instruments to Abidjan to help the ever-evolving music scene there.
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TAGA SIDIBE
WASSOULOU FOLI (KSK CD1013)
Aja Salvatore of Kanaga System Krush is going great guns finding wonderful Malian music that has not been reprocessed for the French disco, the Palooza festival audience or the aged rocker collab scene. Instead he brings us the pure sound of Wassoulou in a shimmering hour of percussion and vocals. Taga is the leader and plays a small high-pitched djembe, the Sogonikun, which is better, he explains, for entertaining bush spirits. There is also the regular hourglass-shaped djembe accompanying him, played by his lifelong friend Yakoub Sidibe, as well as a big bass drum -- the Bari Dunun, which also originated in Wassoulou -- played by hand on one side and a curved drumstick on the higher-pitched side. A fourth cylinder drum is also played with a stick. The lead singer is "Tu" Sinayoko and the response vocals are by Sita Diarra. With this modest ensemble they pack a powerful punch. I guessed Taga was a member of the hunter clan from his headgear on the cover; he is also a traditional medicine man and healer as well as a farmer. As lads he and Yakoub liked to beat on powdered milk cans, then took up ngoni but when their village lacked a drummer and had to hire one, Taga was encouraged by the elders to get serious and study the instrument. His repertoire includes traditional as well as original songs. There is a complex interplay between the rhythms. The song lyrics and even the rhythms used are explained in the liner notes. Not only is Sidibe a master of the traditions, he is a virtuoso on the Sogonikun djembe.
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CARTAGENA!
Curro Fuentes & The Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962-72 (SOUNDWAY)
In the late 80s GlobeStyle started licensing Colombian music for the European market. In 1989 WorldCircuit released the impeccable introductory comp, Cumbia Cumbia from Discos Fuentes. In 1990 Island/Mango leased a smoking set called Tropical Sounds of Colombia from the same source. Both were sampled for the excellent soundtrack to John Sayles' film Men with Guns, and set us on a quest to find Lito Barrientos and others. Soundway's latest 2-disc set is called The Original Sound of Cumbia, assembled by Will Holland. I am sorry to say I was underwhelmed by it. But rather than dwell on that sprawling and drab CD package, let me point you to another, better Soundway release from last year. Cartagena! appealed to me right away because of its vibrant retro cover. This is a packed hour of big band cumbia from the 1960s. There's boogaloo too, but the flavor of salsa suffuses the mix which is drawn from the archives of producer José "Curro" Fuentes, youngest member of the Discos Fuentes family who had his own Discos Curro imprint. This album has an easy flow and grooves from one loping riff to another. There's piano and accordion, wild clarinet flares up, the bass bomp bounces around between scraped and tingled beats, as herds of brass await their moment. Trombone challenges the bass while muted trumpet says, it's my turn, elbowing aside the saxes. As usual if you scour the web you can find some of the tracks to sample. Here's the opener, "Me voy pa la costa" by Rosendo y su Banda on Soundcloud. The rest is up to you.
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Though best-known as bassist for Victor Olaiya, King Sunny Ade, Joni Haastrup's Monomono, O.J. Ekemode and other Nigerian superstars, Baba Ken Okulolo has produced a solo album of drumming, percussion and vocals. After moving to the US Okulolo formed several groups, including Kotoja (to play highlife-rock fusion), the African Brothers (traditional acoustic music) and West African Highlife Band, comprised of some legendary members of Highlife groups like Sweet Talks and Egypt 80 who jammed on oldies, and most recently another fusion band The Afrobeat Connexion. This new solo venture, like everything he does, is thoughtful and well-crafted. It coasts along on buoyant rhythms in which you will hear a wide variety of sounds from the Old & New Worlds, made by udu, djundjun, djembé, agogo, shekere, cajón, congas, talking drum, clay drum, pennywhistle and koi koi. By the mid-point, "Ewa bawa se" you are totally entranced and though this is the longest cut at 5 minutes, I would have loved to have it go on longer. But Okulolo changes gears and throws down a new rhythm and more enchanting melodies for "Iyeye O." Though there's no thumb piano it reminded me of Francis Bebey from Cameroun; the vocals particularly conjured up the meditative Chants à penser from Centrafrique more than Twins Seven Seven or other traditional Nigerian drumming albums. It's an accessible and fun album.
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DEBASHISH BHATTACHARYA
LIVE IN CALCUTTA (Riverboat TUGDD1062)
Last year I reviewed the Rough Guide to India, which came with a bonus CD, Debashish Bhattacharya's Live in Calcutta. If you didn't buy that Rough Guide you may still want to grab the download-only bonus disc, as a fine example of Calcutta slide guitar. Guitar? you ask incredulously. What's a guitar doing in Indian music with all those sitars and veenas and other incredible instruments? Well, Debashish built his own and it has more strings (I guess some of them are sympathetic or resonating strings) that make it sound more like a sitar. He has three generations of home-made instruments and here plays two of them, the chaturangui and anandi. I liked his first two albums and while this doesn't break new ground, it's a great set and perfect for easy listening when you are unwinding or working on something but want a musical continuo in the background. The fact that it's live adds to the flow of the music, there's tablas and obviously no overdubs but just a great upwelling of spirited music. It starts calmly, builds to a crescendo then winds down again, before a blazing outtro.
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BALOJI
KINSHASA SUCCURSALE (Crammed Disc CRAM183)
Baloji opened for Orchestre Baobab in January 2012 at the Barbican in London in what must certainly have been one of the great concerts of the year. I was mesmerized by the Baloji video of Independence Cha Cha on Youtube, where he was backed by Orchestre de la Katuba, so a whole CD from Crammed Disc is worth checking out. Born in Congo (then Zaire) in 1978, Baloji was raised in Liège, Belgium where he got into graffiti and hip hop. When he reached adulthood he decided he needed to go home and find his roots, hence this new album (the English translation of the title is "Kinshasa Branch Office") which remixes some of his rap material from his debut album "Hotel Impala," but adds 6 new songs written in collaboration with contemporary Kinshasan bands, from Konono numero Un, to Zaiko Langa Langa. The Konono track is excellent as is "Kesho" featuring Moise Ilunga. Baloji's name in Swahili means "sorcerer" and he works magic on the Dr Nico-Kabasele classic "Independence Cha Cha." I have a hard time with the harsh declamatory tone of rap -- and it sounds really bad in French -- but I can try to ignore that and focus on the instruments or sung vocals. The collab with Konono, "Karibu Ya Bintou (Welcome to Life in Limbo)" has also been made into a fine Youtube video. The electric numbers show the evolution of soukous (Zaiko are totally unrecognisable) while the acoustic parts remind us of the influence of French production on the work of Salif Keita and others back in the 80s. It's not a keeper, for me, but the memorable videos and window into the future of Congolese pop are worth the glance.
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Recent posts...
(click on maps at the top of the page to get to continent of choice)
January 2012:
Batsumi is filed in South Africa
Novalima's Karimba is filed under Peru
December 2011:
Vijana Jazz's Koka Koka Sex Battalion is filed under Kenya & Tanzania
Anoushka Shankar's Traveller and Sufis at the Cinema are both filed in India & Pakistan
The Kankobela of the Batonga vol 2 is filed under Zambia
Jawbone of an Ass --Cook Recordings-- went to Cuba part 4
Dawda Jobareteh's Northern Light Gambian Night is filed in Senegal & Gambia 2
Black Truth Rhythm Band, to everyone's surprise, is filed in Trinidad!
Tribecastan, no surprise, is filed in USA
Tinariwen's grammy-nominated 2011 effort is filed in Mali & Niger part 2
November 2011:
Asha Bhosle & Shujaat Khan's Naina Lagaike is filed under India
along with two new discs from Ravi Shankar: 9 Decades, vols 2 & 3
Opika Pende: Africa at 78 rpm is filed in Africa Miscellany
October 2011:
Los Destellos went to Peru
Cambodian Space Project is filed where you'd expect
Vis-a-Vis band is under Ghana
Passione, the film about Neapolitan music directed by John Turturro, is filed in Euro misc
Asha Bhosle in concert is filed under India & Pakistan LIVE
The Raw Sound of Burkina Faso can be found in that country
Sibiri Samake is filed under Mali part 2
Youssou's I bring what I love is in Senegal part 2
AfroLatin via Cotonou is filed in Benin
while AfroLatin via Conakry is filed in Guinea
Question Mark's Be Nice and three reissues from Joni Haastrup and MonoMono are filed in Nigeria Part 2
My Top Ten of 2011 can be found HERE.
My Top 9 of 2010 is online HERE
Click HERE for my top 10 of 2009 Click HERE for my top 9 of 2008 Click HERE for my top 10 of 2007 Click HERE for my top 11 of 2006
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MY BEST-SELLING BOOK!
"Essential reference guide to the Congo guitar king" -- SONGLINES 64 **** (four stars)
Note: Only 4 copies left (I got five copies back from a distributor but sold them, so i am still at 4 remaining)
A DISCOGRAPHY OF DOCTEUR NICO
By Alastair Johnston
Poltroon Press, 2009, 78 pages; price $19.95 post-free in the USA; please add $5 for overseas airmail shipping.
Available now. Click here for details.
LETTERBOX
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| all of the writing on this site is copyright © 2004-2012 by alastair johnstonYour comments are welcome. If you are not already a subscriber, send me an e-mail to be notified of updates. Please note none of the music discussed on the site is for sale by me. You can reach me at contact[at-sign]muzikifan[dot]com
muzikifan by alastair m johnston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.muzikifan.com.
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