Sep 11, 2015

Dexter Story - Wondem

On his debut Soundway Records release, Story distils his diverse background in soul, funk, jazz and folk idioms into his own unique and worldly voice. Borrowing from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and Kenya, this collection of East African-influenced music is a testament to Story’s decades of dedication to artistic excellence.

“Wondem is a unique collection of songs inspired by my passion for and immersion into African music and culture over my career” says Story. “This body of work came about as I began to compose and arrange for Todd Simon's Ethio Cali, an emerging ethio-jazz ensemble in Los Angeles. Wondem means brother in Amharic and I felt a strong brotherly connection to Ethiopia during the process.”

‘Wondem’ was written and recorded in Story’s personal studio in downtown Los Angeles and one of his closest associates, producer, composer and musician, Carlos Niño co-produced the record. It was mixed at Niño’s home studio.

In addition Story worked with an array of collaborators on the record. Renowned multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson featured on the percussive track ‘Mowa’ and international producer and artist Mark de Clive-Lowe plays piano and synthesizer on a number of songs, in particular on ‘Yene Konjo’, where his acoustic piano playing there was originally inside of the main section of the song but Story felt it was so beautiful that he moved it to its own highlighted place.

Story also worked with Alsarah Elgadi and Yared Teshale on ‘Wondem’: “I felt that the record needed indigenous language on it and Yared delivered the beautiful ‘Sidet Eskemeche’, which means “we will remember” or “it will never be forgotten”. Alsarah sung in beautiful Arabic for ‘Without An Address’, which addresses the refugee concerns in her native Sudan.”

Outside of ‘Wondem’ Story has used his many talents in a supportive role serving a who’s who of iconic artists throughout his career. From tenures as Snoop Dogg’s product manager and Meshell Ndegeocello’s day-to-day representative to performing with post-millennial luminaries like Dwight Trible, Quadron, Sa-Ra Creative Partners and Gaslamp Killer, Los Angeles-based Story has a proven track record of lending the assist to established and emerging artistry. - See more at: https://www.soundwayrecords.com/Shop/DownloadDetails?rid=SWR_RE_97#sthash.eRztXWl0.dpuf
On his debut Soundway Records release, Story distils his diverse background in soul, funk, jazz and folk idioms into his own unique and worldly voice. Borrowing from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and Kenya, this collection of East African-influenced music is a testament to Story’s decades of dedication to artistic excellence.

“Wondem is a unique collection of songs inspired by my passion for and immersion into African music and culture over my career” says Story. “This body of work came about as I began to compose and arrange for Todd Simon's Ethio Cali, an emerging ethio-jazz ensemble in Los Angeles. Wondem means brother in Amharic and I felt a strong brotherly connection to Ethiopia during the process.”

‘Wondem’ was written and recorded in Story’s personal studio in downtown Los Angeles and one of his closest associates, producer, composer and musician, Carlos Niño co-produced the record. It was mixed at Niño’s home studio.

In addition Story worked with an array of collaborators on the record. Renowned multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson featured on the percussive track ‘Mowa’ and international producer and artist Mark de Clive-Lowe plays piano and synthesizer on a number of songs, in particular on ‘Yene Konjo’, where his acoustic piano playing there was originally inside of the main section of the song but Story felt it was so beautiful that he moved it to its own highlighted place.

Story also worked with Alsarah Elgadi and Yared Teshale on ‘Wondem’: “I felt that the record needed indigenous language on it and Yared delivered the beautiful ‘Sidet Eskemeche’, which means “we will remember” or “it will never be forgotten”. Alsarah sung in beautiful Arabic for ‘Without An Address’, which addresses the refugee concerns in her native Sudan.”

Outside of ‘Wondem’ Story has used his many talents in a supportive role serving a who’s who of iconic artists throughout his career. From tenures as Snoop Dogg’s product manager and Meshell Ndegeocello’s day-to-day representative to performing with post-millennial luminaries like Dwight Trible, Quadron, Sa-Ra Creative Partners and Gaslamp Killer, Los Angeles-based Story has a proven track record of lending the assist to established and emerging artistry. - See more at: https://www.soundwayrecords.com/Shop/DownloadDetails?rid=SWR_RE_97#sthash.eRztXWl0.dpuf

On his debut Soundway Records release, Story distils his diverse background in soul, funk, jazz and folk idioms into his own unique and worldly voice. Borrowing from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and Kenya, this collection of East African-influenced music is a testament to Story’s decades of dedication to artistic excellence.

“Wondem is a unique collection of songs inspired by my passion for and immersion into African music and culture over my career” says Story. “This body of work came about as I began to compose and arrange for Todd Simon's Ethio Cali, an emerging ethio-jazz ensemble in Los Angeles. Wondem means brother in Amharic and I felt a strong brotherly connection to Ethiopia during the process.”

‘Wondem’ was written and recorded in Story’s personal studio in downtown Los Angeles and one of his closest associates, producer, composer and musician, Carlos Niño co-produced the record. It was mixed at Niño’s home studio.

In addition Story worked with an array of collaborators on the record. Renowned multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson featured on the percussive track ‘Mowa’ and international producer and artist Mark de Clive-Lowe plays piano and synthesizer on a number of songs, in particular on ‘Yene Konjo’, where his acoustic piano playing there was originally inside of the main section of the song but Story felt it was so beautiful that he moved it to its own highlighted place.

Story also worked with Alsarah Elgadi and Yared Teshale on ‘Wondem’: “I felt that the record needed indigenous language on it and Yared delivered the beautiful ‘Sidet Eskemeche’, which means “we will remember” or “it will never be forgotten”. Alsarah sung in beautiful Arabic for ‘Without An Address’, which addresses the refugee concerns in her native Sudan.”

Outside of ‘Wondem’ Story has used his many talents in a supportive role serving a who’s who of iconic artists throughout his career. From tenures as Snoop Dogg’s product manager and Meshell Ndegeocello’s day-to-day representative to performing with post-millennial luminaries like Dwight Trible, Quadron, Sa-Ra Creative Partners and Gaslamp Killer, Los Angeles-based Story has a proven track record of lending the assist to established and emerging artistry.


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Wondem is a unique collection of songs inspired by my passion for and immersion into African music and culture over my career” says Los Angeles musician Dexter Story about his new album, set for release on October 23 on Soundway Records. The multi-instrumentalist and producer combined his diverse background in soul, funk, jazz, and folk into his own unique and worldly voice, with influences from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and Kenya.

“This body of work came about as I began to compose and arrange for Todd Simon’s Ethio Cali, an emerging Ethio-jazz ensemble in Los Angeles. Wondem means brother in Amharic, and I felt a strong brotherly connection to Ethiopia during the process.”

The album was written and recorded in Story’s studio in downtown Los Angeles, and coproduced by the talented Carlos Niño. In addition, Story worked with an array of collaborators on the record, including Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Nia Andrews, Alsarah Elgada, and Yared Teshale.

In anticipation of the record, Wax Poetics is premiering the lead track, “Lalibela,” featuring Yared Teshale.

“The song ‘Lalibela’ was composed in tribute to the eleven great rock churches and the holy city in the north of Ethiopia. My mind couldn’t (and can’t) comprehend how they were excavated with precision like that, and I sing praises to them,” says Story. “Lalibela is an important pilgrimage center for Ethiopians, and I hope to visit there soon. The layout of the churches is said to be a replica of Jerusalem commissioned by Emperor Saint Gebre Lalibela in the twelth century. The track features vocalist Yared Teshale from Addis Ababa.”

Dexter Story is a man with many talents—he was the product manager for Snoop Dogg, Meshell Ndegeocello’s day-to-day representative, and later performed with artists such as Dwight Trible, Quadron, Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Kelis, and the Gaslamp Killer.

waxpoetics.com


Sep 9, 2015

John Collins: Ghana, Then and Now (Part 1)






Originally published @afropop.org


John Collins has lived a life in African music that few of us can imagine. Born in the UK, he started playing with traveling bands in Ghana in 1969, at a time when few Westerners had even heard the word “highlife.”  John went on to play with many bands in Ghana and Nigeria. He befriended and worked with Fela Kuti, become a bandleader himself, launched Bokoor Band and then Studio (later an archive) where he recorded important music of the late highlife era, wrote a number of books on West African music, and, ultimately, became a professor of popular music at the University of Ghana in Legon.

Afropop’s Banning Eyre first met and interviewed John at Bokoor in 1993.  Twenty years later, he returned with Sean Barlow and Mark LeVine for a follow-up conversation. What follows is excerpts from both interviews, starting with John’s account of how he got his start in Ghanaian music.

John Collins (1993):  My father came here in 1952 to set up the philosophy department when the university was first opened. So I came with my father and mother. My mother didn’t like Ghana. My father did. So they divorced and I went back to Europe with my mother. I did all my education there. I did a science degree, partly in Bristol, partly in Manchester, partly in London. And I was a musician before I came back to Ghana in 1969. Actually I started as a classical guitar player, and then I joined some rock bands and jazz bands. And I came back in Ghana in 1969 to finish a medical degree that I had discontinued, . because I had wanted to go to Cuba for my student elective , and I got in a lot of trouble with the authorities who were very conservative.

B.E.: Why did you want to go to Cuba?

J.C. (‘93):  Because I was basically a communist. In the mid-60s the medical profession wasn’t very radical. But as the Medical School in Ghana had only just been established  I realized I would have to go back to the beginning of the medical programi, so I switched to the social sciences and got a Sociology and Archaeology  BA. degree at the University of Ghana  at Legon instead..

And then, by coincidence, my father had married a Ghanaian woman, my Auntie Amma,  and he built a house for her about twenty miles north of Accra. And in the house was a tenant called Mr. Bampoe who was the leader and main comedian “Opia”  of the Jaguar Jokers Concert Party. So I told them I could play rock music, and it was kind of a quid pro quo situation. I taught them to play rock music, and they taught me to play highlife. And that’s how I fell into the music, and since then, I can’t even remember how many bands I’ve played with in Ghana. I wasn’t in any way thinking about writing about music or anything, just playing music. I didn’t really start writing until 1974, ‘75, which meant I’d been playing already for about five years. But I’ve always been inquisitive.

B.E.:What was it like then? What were people playing? 

J.C. (‘93): Well, the main foreign star at that time was James Brown. I mean, everybody was crazy over him. And that song, “I’m Black and Proud” was everywhere.But for me, the first band that I played with was this concert party band. One thing is, in that for that sort of music, there wasn’t anybody that was the star of the music, I mean everybody played their part. They had about three guitarists, but there was no problem with me joining in as a guitarist. They didn’t have what we would call a lead guitarist. They had a guitarist that would play a tenor guitar, and they were playing the guitars rather like Africans would play drums, in interlocking parts. It was always dance music. It was never people watching you without doing anything, or just clapping. So I liked the whole feeling of the band. And also, these guys were really intelligent. They knew everything that was going on in Ghana. We went to villages, I met princesses, hunters, farmers, chiefs and all sorts of mind-blowing people  and situations for an Englishman coming to Ghana for the first time, or  rather returning to Ghana as an adult. The only way I can describe it—and this is thinking retrospectively—is, it would be like an Englishman joining a Comedia D’el Arte in the 17th century Europe, a roving band of troubadours moving from village to village, town to town  . But this type of itinerant art form (that  included local clowns and even female impersonators)    was still going in Ghana and it still had a real meaning. It was an actual genuine folk form, which had incorporated a lot of black and American and European music as well.

Straight away, if I played rock music and jazz music and rhythm and blues and stuff like this, I had an instant rapport with them, because they were also very interested in anything from outside. A lot of their music consisted of western music but filtered through their own sensibilities. For instance, the first time I ever saw or heard ragtime played really live was with this group. And tap-dancing. Because this artform, the concert party, has been going since the 1920s, and they’ve absorbed all sorts of black American styles of music, and preserved  them. They haven’t died out. They still use them now. There are some concert parties even now that do the fast stepping, tap dancing ragtime sketches and wear the minstrel makeup. But it wasn’t like walking around in a museum. It was a living thing. And it was all through my father, and the  coincidence of Mr. Bampoe , happened to be living in my father’s house.

hen I played with student bands (like the Deep Blues Feeling of Achimota School), more pop music. And I met and recorded with Koo Nimo [the great palm wine maestro of Kumasi]. And then I met E.T. Mensah, who was a dance-band musician, and I played with his second band, and he and I became very friendly and he took me around and introduced me to a lot of old-time musicians and I started interviewing people. This would be around about 1973. So around then, I began  accumulating information about the background of highlife music. And I went to the university, and only one or two people at the university were interested in it. They were basically antagonistic to highlife. They said it was “a hybrid music,” and that the only genuine types of music were European classical music or African traditional music, and that nothing could exist in between. So I sort of fell out with these people for a while, although things are different now. The university actually teaches highlife. But that’s only since 5 or 6 years ago.

They had these groups in the ‘70s called cultural groups, which were basically highlife musicians going acoustic, going back to their roots. And a lot of Europeans actually, in recent years, when they see a cultural group, they think it is a forerunner to highlife, but it’s actually highlife gone back to its roots.For   instance, there’s  this borborbor music that we were recording today in the studio. If you see a borborbor group, like the one I was recording, it’s all drums, and all highlife rhythms. So you might think this is ancestral to highlife music, but it’s quite the reverse. It was a traditional Ewe music that was influenced by highlife, and incorporated highlife elements.

So these cultural groups were the Ga equivalent to borborbor groups, and they played music like kpanlogo, which, again, looks like traditional music, but it has been modernized with highlife elements, and even elements of rock and roll, there are elements of the twist in there that came in through Chubby Checker in the early ‘60s.

Now these bands were very popular in the early ‘70s, so when I founded my own band, which was called Bokoor, it was modeled on that, which is basically a lot of African percussion with one guitar. And I also played the harmonica.

[John was married to the  the Ghanaian singer- dancer in this band, Gifty Naa Dodoo  for a while. He later married his present wife Dovi Helen and had a son colled Thomas Kojo Collins ]

My first wife was a fire-eater and snake dancer.  We even kept snakes under the bed.

I was the leader of the band, I was the financier, but I didn’t have to be the star. African bands, or Ghanaian bands, particularly the highlife guitar bands, they tend not to project one certain individual over other people, because they take certain elements from a traditional way of playing music. If you listen to a traditional African group, the guy who plays least is probably going to be the master drummer, and the guy who plays most is the apprentice. So it is in reverse order to a lot of European music, where the man who is the star plays all the time, and everything is focused on him or her.

B.E.: What does Bokoor mean?

J.C. (‘93): It means something like cool or collected or calm. At first I just liked the name. Also I was playing with the Bunzus band at the Napolean Club in Accra and Faisal Helwani (the properieter)  had another band there called  Bassa Bassa (hot hot or pandemonium ) . So I chose a name opposite to this.

[John went back to the UK for awhile, but returned to Accra in 1981.]

I’d brought recording equipment, because I had done a lot of recording in Ghana and Nigeria, and I wasn’t very happy with the quality, so wanted to do my own recordings. But in 1982, there was the revolution in the country, and there was curfew for two years, so it was impossible to run a band, especially traveling around, especially as a foreigner. So I decided to just switch to recording. So the Bokoor Band then became Bokoor Studio. So that’s what I’m still doing.

B.E.: So the basic rig you have there, the Tascam 4-track cassette unit is basically what you’ve been using for the whole time?

J.C. (‘93): Yeah.  I’ve got a 10 channel mixer, but I basically use a 4-track recorder. And I’ve recorded in the region of about 300 bands.

B.E.: Most of these cassettes that go out into the cassette market ?

J.C. (‘93): Yeah, when I first started in the early 80s, it was records, so at first records came out of my studio. The early ones I marketed them in Britain. Like The Guitar and the Gun.

B.E.:That’s a great record. Was it a particularly successful one?

J.C. (’93):  It wasn’t successful financially, but people did like it in Europe. I think they liked it because it was rather raw. They were looking for some raw sound.But in recent years, the record industry collapsed here, around about the early ‘80s, and it switched to cassettes, so everything now is done on cassettes. So what I do now is I do the recording and I make the cassette master, and that goes straight onto the market for duplication, but I don’t actually do productions any more. I just go as far as making master tapes. Basically I’m a recording engineer.

B.E.: And you’ve written books.

J.C. (‘93): In 1974, I wrote a book about E.T.Mensah, I gave it to State Publishing here, they sat on it, and finally when Retro-Afric released an album of E.T.Mensah some years ago, I think about ‘86, and they also produced this book or booklet. And then there was another book about the Jaguar Jokers, I also gave that to State Publishing, they’re still sitting on it, but I’m using it as the basis of my PhD now, in fact.

[John had already written seven books when we met in 1993, and he made a point about how they were mostly focused on the stories of specific musicians.]

I mean, basically, history is made by individuals.  It’s not  an abstract   processes. Rather historical, cultural and musical process can often be   pinpointed  down to certain particular biographies.

[At the start of 1993, John was in shock at the changes he was seeing in Ghanaian popular music.  The CD had just arrived, and was not yet recordable, and so appeared as a power grab by record companies determined to crack down on the easy possibilities of the cassette format. More troubling still, the very concept of the band, deeply tied to notions of family, village, and community in Africa, was vanishing before his eyes. John’s reflections are interesting to consider with 20 years hindsight. He was witnessing the dawn of the digital age, and was not impressed.]

J.C. (’93):  Well, it’s a worldwide phenomenon: it’s the disappearance of live music. What’s happening in Ghana, and it’s basically happened within the last 7 or 8 years, is that all the studios now, except mine, and  Ghana Films, no longer do live recordings. It’s all a series of overdubs, sequencers, drum machines, synthesizers—this type of thing. Even in the studio situation, they don’t have living groups of human beings playing music with each other any more. It’s all spaced out in time. The bass player comes in on Saturday afternoon and somebody else comes on Tuesday…
On top of that, the television is also doing the lip-synch thing. I mean, one of the reasons they are doing this, I think, is that if you create a totally artificial music, you can’t reproduce it live, because maybe you’re doing all sorts of harmonizing and this type of thing. So you have to lip-synch it, because you’ve got no alternative.

In Ghana, specifically the pop music here, live bands have basically disappeared. It’s very difficult to find a live band in Accra. If you want to find live music in Ghana now, there’s three main areas where you can get it. There’s the traditional music, which is still in existence, and this is very lucky for Ghana that the traditional music hasn’t been wiped out, because it means that there can be a re-birth at any time of live music through the interaction with modern technology and so on producing new styles of  popular music. That’s very, very important.

Second, there’s the concert parties, which still exist, but because of this lip-synching, and the spinners—that’s the mobile discos that have taken over the all the city nightclubs—the concert parties are only found in the rural areas now.

And thirdly, there’s the church. The African separatist churches broke away from the orthodox Christians, because, you know, the whites didn’t allow dancing in the church. It’s forbidden, or so the whites say. That’s the European version of Christianity. Of course, if you read the new testament and the stories of the last supper, you will find that they did dance. Even Jesus danced. But it was forbidden by the European Christian  idea that  the body and flesh are evil and so you shouldn’t move your body when worshipping God. So a lot of Africans started to break away from the Christian church because of this.

Traditionally in  Ghana, they worship God or their gods  on their feet. It’s unknown to actually kneel to worship God. In fact, when you are amongst the Akan, you point upwards, you don’t get on your knees. I mean, if you’re getting on your knees, it means maybe there’s a god under the ground, but it’s not the Supreme God. So they broke away from the Christian churches, these separatist churches, and started using percussion and dancing; actually very much like the Black American churches. Then very recently, about ten years ago, the local churhces  started to bring in the guitar bands. So then you have this evolution of gospel music, which is basically a synthesis of gospel, or singing about God, Jesus, and playing highlife and dancing to it. And this came at exactly the same time when the music industry in Ghana was falling to pieces: a military induced  economic slump. So the church was becoming a patron for a lot of  popular dance-music musicians. So if you want to see a lot of very spiritual live music, go to the churches.

 So there are these three areas: the traditional music, the concert parties, and the churches. But the popular music as such has become totally artificial.

And one of the problems right now is that, in all the studios, live drummers hardly ever appear anymore. It’s all done with drum-machines. I myself have got a drum machine. I didn’t want to get it. I got it about three years ago, because I was told by the musicians that they would boycott my studio if I didn’t . Then, synthesizers replace horns, so what you’re getting actually is the demise of live drummers and live horn players, which Ghana is actually famous for. And, although you can still find them in some places, like the church…I mean, if not for the church, I don’t know what would have happened to a lot of musicians.

What I’m worried about it, is you only need another five or ten years of this, and you’re going to get a whole generation that doesn’t know about live drummers in studios, a whole generation of engineers who don’t know how to mic up drums, who don’t even conceive of doing live recordings.
In the studio now, I’ve always got to use the  “ tweeters,” as  they call them, it’s basically the hi-hat on the drum-machine, and many of the musicians  always want me to make it loud using equalizers, ridiculously loud. And it spoils the music; it’s cutting the music unnecessarily. And because of things like the tweeters and this heavy, emphatic downbeat and the upbeat, which is all totally mechanical because it’s played on a drum machine, the voices are  therefore being cut by  instruments. And in fact, because of that, in a lot of Ghanaian music now, the voice is very low in the mix. And it’s not even a natural voice any more. It’s a harmonized voice, or a double-tracked or triple-tracked voice. It’s almost like people are losing the confidence in the human voice.

So the drummers are out, the horn players are out, keyboards are in, computers are in, and the human voice is kind of slowly sinking down into the mix. And I think it’s exactly like the expression  the: ”Ghost the Machine” about western individuals getting lost over the centuries in their mechanistic vision. But it’s happened so quickly here, that’s what’s shocking to me.

It’s happening in Europe too, but because it’s happening more slowly, there’s sort of an organized resistance or response to it. I mean in a recording session of an orchestra you can’t take the first violinist on Saturday, the second violinist on Sunday and so on. Or  if you went to a good jazz group and asked them to do everything via overdubs, they would just laugh in your face. They would say, “No, it will remove the spirit of the music, the dialogue between the musicians.” So despite all their technology westerners s keep their most important music as live music.

The one thing that gives me hope in Ghana is the fact that the traditional music isn’t dead. So there’s always this possibility, that from the traditional musicians, a new type of music can evolve. But even that, it’s not going to be there forever.

 [Fast forward twenty years. John’s Bokoor archive has withstood a devastating flood in 2012, caused in large part through bad land management by a neighboring saw mill. John is a senior professor at University of Ghana now, no longer involved in music production, he co-runs the Local Dimension  highlife band (with Aaron Bebe Sukura) but is still a savvy observer of a scene that has completely transformed itself since our first meeting. Meanwhile, Ghana’s popular music has been reinvented in the era of “hiplife” (a blend of highlife and hip hop that has now diversified into several subgenres) and the Azonoto dance craze. We start by listening back to John’s 1993 comments about the voice “sinking into the mix.”]

J.C. (2013): Yeah, sinking into the mix. The ghost in the machine. This did go on for about 5 or 10 years, actually. You know, that process of synthesizers and drum machines started with Burger highlife, the disco style created by Ghanaians living in Germany. And it continued even more in the hiplife generation, because you didn’t have bands at all. You just had either one singer or two singers. That problem about the voice—I mean, one of the interesting things about rapping or hiplife is at least the voice had to be louder again. It came back. It was predominantly of poetic mode.
And of course, lots of bands these days are using Autotune and so on. Ghanaians tend to use it at 101%. It’s not  used subtley because it’s a gadget, and its new, so some Ghanaian musicians  want to overdo it. But that problem is still with us. There weren’t that many studios. And even now, there are very few studios that can do a live recording. It is all overdubs.. And the hiplifers, they don’t really have bands. They have studio bands. So that problem is still with us.

B.E.: But has there been a learning curve with the development of hiplife?

J.C. (2013): Yes. One of the things is they have started to introduce live percussion with hiplife groups. With traditional rhythms, they will bring in the odonno or kpanlogo drums.  For instance, Okyeame Kwame will use fontomfroms or something like this, sort of humanizing the beat boxes with human drum beats.

You know, there’s nothing wrong with using a metronomic beat if you then weave around it a live drum beats. It’s quite a good way of recording. I personally prefer an acoustic drum. But I think even in the West, when they started with drum machines, they started adding live percussion to humanize it, and then adding other things like traditional instruments, and so on. I mean, when I spoke to you back then, I was extrapolating a situation at that time that was very negative, but it’s sort of picked up.

B.E.:Back in 1993, you did also talk about the fact that traditional music was alive and well, and that always leaves open the possibility of a Renaissance.

J.C. (2013): Yeah. A re-linking. And now, that is happening. That’s why the northern factor is so important these days. Because in areas like the  north, there is still a strong tradition of music.

Mark LeVine: Speaking of the north, Ebo Taylor told us that Islam in Ghana was just another aspect of life, not a determinative identity. How do you view the role of Islam in the development of Ghanaian culture in music?

J.C. (2013): Until recently, I would’ve said was a disconnect between southern Ghana and northern Ghana that is heavily Islamic , both traditionally and in the modern era.  The northern Ghanaian Sahelean traditional culture is quite distinct from the southern forest culture in its singing, its instruments—everything. Even after independence, you don’t get any significant northern Ghanaian popular music until about 10  to, 15 years ago. There were just a few exceptions. But now, the big reconnect is happening. And it’s because Jerry Rawlings put electricity into the north 15 or 20 years ago, and you’ve now got the beginning of a northern Ghanaian popular music, industry, recording wise. You’re getting a massive flood of music from the north, artists like Atongo  Zimba and King Ayisoba and, Sheriff  Ghale. And this includes hip life, reggae, local music. Samini, the hiplife artist,  for instance, is a northerner, as is the reggae star Rocky Dawuni.

Sean Barlow: At this point, we’ve had over 15 years of hiplife music.  What has been your experience of that development?

J.C. (2013):  There were three things going on at the same time really: generation change, technology, and identity. The early hiplifers had to stick  their nose up at their parents, like every young generation has to. Second, there were the changes in technology resulting in techno-pop styles like burger highlife and hiplife. And third there was a change in musical identity that was  a byproduct of the military era, which not only destroyed most of the live bands and role models for the youth, but they also took music out of the education system. So basically, by the early  ‘90s, we have had a generation going through school, , who are not familiar with Western band instruments as the bands that used them  had  died off. Then the technology came in to save them, because the youth  can use a  ghetto blaster or beat box and do some rap over them . In some ways, it was like what happened in the states with Reagan when he demoted music and a lot of the black youth couldn’t get access to musical instruments. One of the triggers for rap and hip-hop in America was a byproduct of the demotion of music in the school system. Something very similar happened in Ghana when the  Rawlings government decided in the late 1980s to  make the education system more technical and therefore  marginalised music.

So live musicians had gone to the churches. But in the early days, I really think hiplife was a statement of by the youth against their parents. So it was decontextualized. It wasn’t American, ghetto, black oppression music. It was simply music to get up the nose of their parents. They would sing very fast, double-fast singing. Nobody could understand it, not even their own parents.
And because their parents were dancing to live bands, the youth decided to not dance. There was a time when hiplifers didn’t dance at shows. This has changed now, of course, because of Azonto. Finally! But it took it 15 years to get a specific dance attached to hiplife . You know, in Ghana, highlife, Afrobeat, everything comes with its accompanying dance. So there was this disconnection between hiplife and a recognized form of dance that went with it. You could freestyle of course. In fact, the style in early hiplife was to jump up and down in front of  a rap hero who himself was lip-synching.

 So these were all experiments in alienation—but not  like western punk music where experiments with alienation (like noisy music, black clothes, cadaverous make-up)  were meant to prove  society had become  decadent or decayed, like what Margaret Thatcher had done to Britain.  For Ghanaian youth the  use of alientating techniques  such as miming etc  was more a statement against the older generation.

Reggie Rockstone created the term “hiplife” in about 1994 or , 95. I guess the style had been around for about five years. But it was sung in American English. Then he made that first transformation by rapping in the local language. But the music itself lagged behind. And also the format of performance was usually mimed.

You know, in about 2000, I played at a Reggie Rockstone show with Aaron Sukura. This was a terrible experience we had playing for 5000 hiplife youth. It was us (the Local Dimension highlife band) and the Pan African Orchestra, led by Nana Danso Abiam. We had known Reggie Rockstone’s father, Osei. So when he died, as a courtesy, we older generation opened up this  hiplife show in honour of Rockstone’s dad. We played along with about 10 hiplifeacts, and in front of 5000 youth. And when we started playing, there was almost a riot. But because of our lyrics–we were singing a song in Twi about corruption–half the crowd sang with us, and were able to stop the other half booing us, simply because of the lyrics. Basically the last thing the youth  wanted to see was a live band. They are the young generation, and live bands are dead. That’s for the older generation.
I think we managed to play one song. Fine. And then Nana Danso came on stage, but he was playing instrumental. He was booed and couldn’t even finish one song. Reggie had to stop the show and politely get them off the stage. To make way for the hiplife groups

Sean Barlow: Looking at the hiplife scene now, do you find any of these artists reaching into the traditions of the past in Ghana?

J.C. (2013): Oh yes, a whole bunch of them. Take Obour, the head of the musicians union.  He did an album with AB Crentsil some years ago. You see, what happened was, in the beginning, hiplife was very derivative of American music, except for the words. Not much African music material. Reggie Rockstone, I think he used some of Fela’s rhythms. But basically, it was more American funk music, with African lyrics, or Twi lyrics. So about 2002, about 10 or 11 years ago, there was the beginning of a shift towards performing live and integrating African rhythms, and collaborations with highlife stars, for instance Pat Thomas. I can’t remember which hip lifer made a song with him. But Pat Thomas actually took him to court for copyright infringements as he never aksed Pat Thomas for permission .

Banning Eyre:  Did he win his case?

J.C. (2013): I think he did.

B.E.: But this sounds like an improvement overall, right?

J.C. (2013): Well, as you know, I got very depressed because the musicians were moving towards robotic music, or alienated forms of music. I thought, then what is the future of Ghana? But they’ve come completely out of that now.   Well maybe not completely, but I’m trying to be optimistic. There are signs that they’re coming out of it. And don’t forget. I went through the punk thing in Britain. But there were reasons for that. Those experiments in alienation, sticking pins in the face. cadaverous looks,  anti-establishment lyrics and all these types of things was a reflection on the state of UK decay. You’ve (i.e. the ruling class)  created hell on earth for us, so we’ve come to create the background music of hell. That’s what it was about, always wearing black and looking very somber and so on.

But in Ghana  the alienation of lip-synched  shows, super fast (kasa harri) lyrics  baggy trousers  etc was simply a generational thing.  Sydney  was the first hiplifer to attempt to play live. I’d love to find out what was the trigger. I personally believe that he went to Britain or America and tried to mime in front of an international audience, and realized you can’t. Anyway, there started to be this experimentation with highlife crossovers and taking highlife loops. And it led to a breakaway.

B.E.: In 1993, you tied the breakdown of live bands as popular entertainment to the breakdown of the family unit, and the village unit, communalism generally.

 J.C. (2013): Yes, that is the great disaster, actually,one of the biggest disasters that has befallen Ghana in the last 50 years. And luckily enough, we have a running commentary on this because of highlife songs and concert party plays from the 1950s through ‘80s. One of the big themes in these linked performing arts was the breakup of the family–broken homes. There were no such things as broken homes traditionally. If you were orphaned, you were dead. You couldn’t be a rugged  individualist – if you were, you were a witch. So everyone belonged to a social network. And what Europeans brought in through education, modern economic stratification, urban migration, the cash nexus and Christian norms about a nuclear family, was the destruction of the extended family. And as you know, when anyone  gets a divorce, love turns  into hatred. And when whole extended families break up it’s the same thing and its  very bitter. So actually, a ‘civil war’ broke out among Ghanaian families, particularly in the Southern  cocoa cash-crop areas.

There were inheritance disputes, witchcraft accusations, orphaned children. And this became a dominant theme in highlife and popular theatre from the 1950s on as Ghana moved towards the small nuclear family. So in popular text there were themes  like  ‘agyanka” (orphan)  and  “abusua bone ,” bad family and  witchcraft within the family.

Witchcraft in Ghana was traditionally connected with unusual wealth and power of an individual, in a relatively egalitarian society. When Western ‘civilization’  capitalist competition and modern social classes came to Africa  there was a massive increase in  the growth of witchcraft accusations, because witchcraft was the African metaphor for evil stemming from excessive egoistic power and wealth. During colonial times there  were even  uprising agains witches, , who were the ‘warrent chiefs’ imposed on Africans by the British. In fact, Christianity  and colonialism,  far from reducing witchcraft,  rather encouraged witchcraft accusations and anti-witchcraft  movements in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa.

I’m not saying there weren’t demonic or evil forces in traditional Africa, but they had ways of controlling it. However,  the anti-witchcraft shrines were banned by the colonialists who at the same time  introduced capitalist inequalities and ultra individualism which were seen in traditional African eyes, as a case of massive witchcraft. With social stratification some people within the modern economy  became  very rich and powerful  whilst others become very poor. And this all impacted the families. Families broke up. . Sociologists and developmental people might call the breakdown of the traditional extended family system as ‘ progress’,   but in fact it led to a loss of security and growing anxiety.  So we’re lucky we have a running commentary on this disaster through the highlife  songs and concert party plays of the very people undergoing this trauma.

B.E.:Is this running commentary continuing in today’s music?

J.C. (2013): Not in hiplife,as these   are the product of the nuclear families. Infact hiplife started in the 1990s with middle-class urban youth. The hiplifers  are the new people of the Ghanaian individualized and consumer society. Broken homes and witchcraft were the themes  of an earlier epoch when the extended families  were still breaking up, and they hadn’t reached the modern nuclear family state.

One of the problems with hiplife in connection with individualism is that it’s from an urban  generation who want to become famous fast. So they’re very prone to go onto radio and television and make themselves famous artificially. The DJs are their own peer group and so  there’s a lot of exposure on the radio to hiplife. But this is not so  for  the church. The church is operating in a more organic way. But that’s where, the future of Ghanaian  popular dance music is really being determined. Infact some estimates put the gospel music  of  the Ghanaian churches as 60 or even 70 percent of the total output of the countries popular music.

Only 15% of the Ghanaian population is Muslim (quite different from Nigeria)  whilst 65%  is now Christian. Black forms of Christianity have very beneficial effects. Look at America and the black churches with the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King. And don’t forget what Karl Marx said.about religion being  the ‘opiate of the people’. Sensible enough and  we all know that. In the same phrase from his Communist Manifesto of the 1840s he  continues that religion is the ‘sigh of the oppressed’.. He’s getting a little bit deeper there. Then he goes really deep when he ends by saying that . religion is the ‘heart of a heartless world’ . It is the last part of that statement, that’s always truncated. And his observation applies right now to Ghana. The ‘heart’  of Ghana, was embedded in its live performance, traditional music and  highlife. But Ghana has moved  towards a ‘heartless world’ ,  of military governments, hi-technology  and  neo-liberalism. So, one aspect of the  heart of a Ghanaian, in terms of music performance, has gone into  the African churches with their dancing to live gospel music.  But not so much into the commercial popular music sector  because there is little live performance and only  few clubs that cater for this form of music ,.. But there are thousands of churches.If you really want to get a sense of how lively and spirited the popular music was in Ghana, say 30 years ago when  the center of everything were live shows, then go to a Ghanaian church.

B.E.:You seem to have mixed feelings about the effects of these Protestant churches.

J.C. (2013): Because in Ghana, it was back to front.  Europeans introduced Western capitalism to a country that still believed in family connections, ,and communal  taboos and so on. Collective punishment,collective responsibilities and not  individual rights. In traditional Africa, it wasn’t the individual that was the unit of society,it was the family. But these ideas were depicted negatively by Europeans – as nepotism, superstition and against personal liberty and individual rights,
What we’ve seen in the last 30 years is the failure of the African alternative to modern technological development. It’s different from what we’ve seen happen in China, or Japan, or India that survived colonial balkanization . With the  or destabilization or even overthrow of the early Pan African socialist leaders (like Nkrumah and Lumumba), this wasn’t allowed to happen in Africa. So they’ve gone to the Western model. But to do this, African  have to go now through  a Protestant Awakening, just as Europe did in the 18th and 19th centuries with it resulting  ‘work ethic and heightened sennse of individualism.    But Ghanaian are going into an  individualistic mode years  after  the  creation of a capitalist society set up by the colonialists , So it’s back to front as compared to the West  where a Protestant Reformation and Awakening had to occur before the forces of capitalism and  private property could be unleashed . So these days many African want to become like the West, not just in the system of rule, but in the way they think and play music, individual rights, egoism and the solo super-star. So, obviously, the Protestant religion is very favorable, because it boosts  individual rights and responsibilities, instead of the collective responsibilities and punishments of the traditional gods and so on. Nevertheless,  the African churches do retain some of the  old African principles such as spiritual healing,  posession (by the Holy Ghost) exorcism (of witchcraft) and dancing as a form of prayer

B.E.: So even though so many of these churches have become “Africanized” in various ways, you see an underlying problem with the whole ideology of individualism?

J.C. (2013):  It’s worse for the Africans. Because when they develop their systems, they have to compete with advanced capitalist systems, and when they create geniuses, they flow out of the countries in  a ‘brain drain’. Like all the doctors who are in striking in Ghana now. Out of let’s say 2000 doctors who have been trained at Ghanaian universities over the last 30 years, there’s only about 600 and Ghana. My figures maybe a little out of date, but it’s something like that. How could Isaac Newton and James Watson and all the mentors of the Industrial Revolution have created their inventions if they were being sucked out of their countries  by  a superpower?

So in fact, it’s impossible for Africa to develop independently, unless they come together like China or India. I mean the great miracle of the modern world is China and India in that they have survived colonialism without  becoming balkanized. They weren’t divided up into little estates like as has happened  Africa or Latin America. And it’s because of that there there’s the world’s center of gravity is shifting in the world to these powers. Whether they make a better job of that than the West, I don’t know. But if you look at China or India, they have both put two things together which the West was prepared to destroy the planet over. That was capitalism and communism which westerners considered diametrically opposed and so  were ever ready to destroy the world in a Cold War. But with India and China you have communist areas and capitalist areas operating side-by side in the same country  They’ve done what was impossible for the Western powers.

This is why there’s still some hope for us. And I would advise any African country to tie their laces to the Chinese and Indians, not to the West. Because the West is actually counter-developing Africa, not just because they are extracting raw materials but because they’re sucking up many of Africa’s  intelligent and successful; people, Also the West has divided  Africa into fifty small countries. None of them, except maybe Nigeria and South Africa  are big enough to sustain an independent economy. So I think the problem is trying to create a modern technological society when you’ve got advanced technologies that want to keep you at the level of producing raw materials, stealing your brains and interfering in your political systems . That’s really the problem.

Luckily, there is China and India — I mean, what a miracle. And we owe this to two of the  greatest men in the world  Ghandi and Mao Tse Tung– they both made sure their countries  survived  colonialism intact –  and have gone on to become continental powers. This is why the Chinese colonialism is different from the American British or French one. The Chinese don’t interfere with the politics of the country that they are investing in, whether it’s a dictatorship or democracy. That’s not their business. But America and Europe want to invade countries and overthrow  governments, like Ghana and the Congo in the sixties,  or   Somalia, northern Mali and  Libya today. All this does is unleash a destabilization process in Africa.

B.E.: Coming back to music in Ghana, I get the feeling that, overall, you are feeling more positive about what is going on than you were twenty years ago.

J.C. (2013): Yes then people like me Koo Nimo, E.T.Mensah,  King Bruce and Kwaa Mensah were so worried that  that youth were not interested in highlife that we set up the BAPMAF archives to preserve this music. But things are now changing and many young musicians and media people are becoming interested in both highlife and folkoric music.  If you want to know, there were two people—and you can tell them this if you see them—of the modern generation who made me  realize I was not on my own. I won’t say that I saw them as sons exactly, but I knew that something good was going to come in Ghana. The two people were Paa K..  Holbrook-Smith and Panji Anoff.  In the early 1990’s. I saw nothing on the horizon except more miming and machine music. And then, Paa K put the first specialist highlife program on Groove FM, and later he  collaborated with BAPMAF in various highlife festivals . He really knows his onions about the history of highlife  and in the early 1990s it was just a joy to be able to sit down and listen to a Ghanaian DJ talking in depth about highlife. I thought, “What a relief!”

And then there is Panji Anoff, the same sort of thing, He did an in-depth study of why live music is more important than machine music. He did quite serious research on this using oscilloscopes  and visiting analogue  recording studios in Jamaica. He proved that you cannot actually do away with  live music and he also helped the hiplife generation re-connect with highlife and folkloric music. I also  did highlife projects with Panji

And then there were other positive developments  like the interest of the French and German Embassy cultural organisations in highlife and live music and the  upsurge of Ghanaian festivals that project highlife, such as  Music of African Origin. Here’s another extraordinary story, in connection with  radio stations. When you came to the country in 1993 , we thought that the GBC—the Ghanaian Broadcasting Corporation—had no record collection. Because at that time even a German researcher called Dr. Wolfgang Bender had brought some  German government music preservation money and discovered  that there was none to be  preserved. Working with this  German and using this same money, we digitizeds six-hundred hours of field recordings made by  Professor Nketia and others  of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana ‘. That’s why we did it, because there was no GBC archives. We have now discovered that,  in fact, they had a secret stash of 20,000 records in a room that had been locked and sealed. Nobody had been able to get to it until a German called Marcus Coester , about two years ago, managed to get into the place.  He brought more German money (via Dr. Bender) , and set up a place where they can digitize the radio records and tapes, catalogue  them , and air some of the music  on   programs,every Saturday. So this is a huge resource, which we didn’t even know about. They were sitting on it, and we thought it had disappeared into smoke. So this is another very positive thing..

And also, we should never forget Charles Wereko-Brobbey who set up the very  first private radio station in Ghana. This was just like Radio Caroline. You know the story about Radio Caroline in Britain? It was illegal in the sixties to have a private radio station, so the station was put on a boat near the British coast . And of course, the British government  stormed this pirate radio  boat and. But in the end, the government  had to change the law and allow private radio stations . Well, we have a Ghanaian who did the same thing. Wereko-Brobbey.  He set up a Radio Eye , an illegal private radio station. And of course, he was arrested, and it was closed down. But after that, the Ghanaian government  was  forced to open up the airwaves. Now we have around 240 radio and TV stations in Ghana. He’s a very contentious character, but he really did something wonderful for Ghana.

B.E.:Amazing.  What year was that?

J.C. (2013): That would have been about 1993 or ‘94?. And then the government had to de-regulate the airwaves. In short, Borbbey was willing to take on the government an as a result  opened up the airwaves . He’s an interesting man, because he’s also the only person here who has ever published books on highlife.  My  two books on highlife published in Ghana  were published by him and his Anansesem Press in 1996. These were “Highlife Time”  and “E.T. Mensah the King of Highlife.”

 Originally published @afropop.org

Sep 8, 2015

From Brazil: Bixiga 70 - III


Third album from this 10 piece Brazilian outfit and they are sounding ever stronger and more confident in their music and their ability to stretch out and jam.

Heavy horn sound coupled with pounding and insistent percussion – they take cues from Fela Kuti’s Afrika 70 – but versatile and fluid as well.

The playing is superb, probably not a weak link among them and I particularly enjoyed Cris Scabello’s guitar work – light and melodic and perfectly set against the heavy percussion and blasting horns. Marcelo Dworecki lays down wonderful sinuous bass lines that underpin the rhythm and Mauricio Fleury’s keyboards and guitar add yet more texture to the sound. But it is an album that is led by the horns and driven by the percussion and here it is in its element: Afrobeat meets Brazilian flair and leaves the listener gasping in admiration. The music also incorporates many other influences, not least cumbia and ethio-jazz but the album is also laden with funk, working with all the other styles.

When they stretch out – as on ‘100% 13’ they cross the styles and forms but a blaster such as ‘Lembe’ shows the whole power and melody of the band.

The entire album was put together by the band as a collective and you can clearly hear the musicians working together to produce music that has more flavours than a Heston Blumental breakfast but that coalesces into a wondrous whole. It was recorded live in the studio and once again you can hear the band structure working to create something that is unique but entirely of the musicians that created it.

At low levels of volume there is enough to grab the ear but it comes into its own when the sound is cranked up.

Stunning, exciting and standing proud.

music-news.com

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For those new to the band, Bxiga 70 take their name from a Central São Paulo area where they are based and Fela Kuti’s Afrika 70 band. According to the band website the area is one of the best in the city to eat out and listen to music. If their music is anything to go by I can well believe it.

The ten musicans that make up the band bring diverse influences and are individually involved in the city’s avantgarde pop, jazz, dub and Brazilian scenes. Their aptly named third album III is released on Glitterbeat (Sept 11th) who describe it as shape-shifting contemporary afro-funk, Moroccan cumbia, spiritual jazz, adapted afro-brazilian chants, Cuban blaxploitation, sounds from São Paulo’s Black Rio movement, Arabian dub, Malinké drumming, Angolan guitar music and traditional bamboo fife bands.

folkradio.co.uk

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Sao Paulo ten piece release their third album. Louder Than War’s Paul Scott-Bates reviews.

From the streets of Bixiga in Brazil and heavily influenced by Fela Kuti’s Afrika 70 band, the ten member of Bixiga 70 make quite a sound. Mixing Brazilian music with Afro-funk and reggae barely scratch the surface and they power through nine exhausting tracks on a stunner of an album.
Purely instrumental maybe sometimes means the need to have more complex patterns and melodies to carry a track and that is certainly the case here. With not one, or two, but three percussionist members the scene is set for a lively sound throughout. Trombone, trumpet and saxophones add to give the album the lift that makes it an essential listening.

An electronic funk bass line and semi-dubbed keyboards enlighten 100% 13, a track which it is impossible to remain seated to. The need to get up and make a complete fool of oneself is unavoidable as it becomes one of the many highlights of the album.

Niran rides through a Blaxplotation vibe as it cleverly combines more regular cumba beats and 70s funk sounds, and Di Dancer is more formula in its construction as South American rhythms are blended with African vibes.

It’s easy to make comparisons with other bass oriented sounds. Fela Kuti is an obvious one, even PigBag and The Apples could make justified mentions, but to be fair the connection between the continents separated by the mighty Pacific is rare, particularly when other aspects are also added to the mix.

Martelo moves at a million miles an hour from the opening beats and has a hook which could almost be Shaft inspired if it were speeded up tenfold. The frenetic bass guitar and tight clinical horns provide nothing but complete excitement.

The pace is slowed somewhat towards the end of the album as Lembe gradually decreases the manic sound, Mil Vidas too shows signs of the mood shifting and by the time album closer 7 Pancadas appears things have taken on a more serene tone.

Recorded live to maintain the power and recorded in the bands own studio, III is a triumph in bringing together several genres which have hereunto stayed poles apart.
Turn the volume up high and enjoy.

louderthanwar.com



Sep 7, 2015

From Brazil: Bixiga 70 - Ocupai

  
The soundtrack to World Cup summer will be a parade of joyous sambas and thundering drums (and Fifa-sponsored North American R&B), but Brazil's music is giddily diverse. This big band from São Paulo have their roots in Nigerian Afrobeat, with its relentless grooves and giant brass blasts, but on this second album the 10-piece weave in other strands. Isa borrows its sinuous melody from Ethio-jazz, Cinco Equinas has a James Brown beat and Kalimba lifts off into Congolese soukous. Elsewhere, swirls of psych-organ vie with dub and home-grown candomblé. It's all instrumental but the energy and intelligence of the playing are irresistible.

theguardian.com

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When Bixiga 70 released their self-titled debut album in 2011 I jumped at the chance to call it “Brazilian afrobeat”, which is essentially what it was, a 10-piece orchestra heavy in percussion and horns playing extended jams that always threatened to tear the roof off. At times they veered into disco or Afro-Brazilian rhythms but the afrobeat influence was impossible to ignore. The fact that one of their band members, Mauricio Fleury, had spent a good amount of time with afrobeat icon Tony Allen and wanted to put what he had learnt from him to good use was inescapable.

On their second album – also titled Bixiga 70 in Brazil, though re-titled Ocupai for its international release – things are different. The sound is no longer so easy to describe. The line-up is the same – guitar, bass and keys with an arsenal of brass and drums – but they’ve taken the sound up a level. Bixiga 70 have only been together a few years but this already sounds like a band hitting their peak, 10 members bringing their influences to the table for a sound that pushes the limits of the big band format, a format that is becoming increasingly popular with brass bands, gypsy orchestras and afrobeat groups showing up in all the major cities of the world. As well as being influenced by Tony Allen, Fleury also told me when I interviewed him earlier this year for the Sounds and Colours Brazil book that Antibalas and Budos Band were big influences for the way they added their own identity to the afrobeat or ethiojazz sound. On their latest album, this is exactly what Bixiga 70 have done. It’s a mind-blowing stew of sounds that makes even Antibalas sound conservative in comparison.

Strangely, the album starts with its most subdued track, a cover of Os Tincoãs’s “Deixa a Gira Girá”, which is barely recognisable from the original. It’s also an interesting parallel with the first album. That one started with “Grito de Paz”, a song that was inspired by the melodies of Os Tincoãs (who are, by the way, a hugely influential Brazilian vocal group from the 70s who perfected a unique blend of pop and African spirituality – well worth checking out). It shows the confidence of the band, converting the original track’s simple vocal melody into a wall of horns. It works perfectly in cleansing the palette and adding a sense that the album is going to become somewhat grandiose in nature. It’s also the start of a trend across the album, with each track very much its own thing, with its own identity and influences.

“Ocupai” starts with the kind of James Brown funky drummer beat that every hip-hop cat wants to sample before a spaced-out keyboard starts sending signals into outer-space. Soon you’re in a polyrhythmic whirlpool; horns, guitar, bass and percussion weaving in and out of each other as the beat spins you round. On “Kalimba” we get a spiralling West African guitar line to spice up affairs; on “5 Esquinas” we’re going on a manic sprint through the centre of Addis Addab; “Tangará” again takes an African influence but here its distorted blues guitar from the Sahara desert which gets things moving.

My favourite track is “Kriptonita”, but then I have always been a big disco fan at heart. This one starts slow with low-slung bass, keyboards fidgeting and horns telling the crowds to move to one side. Soon the path is clear, the horns get feisty, drums are all out assaulted and quite easily the best guitar riff I’ve heard all year sinks its teeth into me. If that was all there was, it would be enough, but this one builds and builds. There are Bernie Worrell-esque keyboard squeals, bass solos, and countless drops in and out of the groove. You know that scene in Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense when David Byrne starts running round the stage as the band suddenly turns into a monolithic groove. Well, you’ll be running round your speakers listening to this one, that’s for sure.

I honestly thought that Bixiga 70’s first album was great, one of the best albums in recent memory in Brazil. The fact that they’ve taken their sound to a new level and one that is so much higher than what they’ve achieved before either means I was wrong on that first one, or that this is one of the greatest albums I’ve heard in a long time. I think it might be the latter.

Undoubtedly the best Brazilian album of 2013, and possibly the best Brazilian album of 2014 now that it’s being released internationally, this is essential listening. If you like afrobeat, Ethiojazz, brass bands, polyrhythmic paeans, Bootsy Collins jams, Saharan grooves, acid jazz moves or any form of music that’s ever existed then you’ve got to listen to this album. It really doesn’t get much better.

soundsandcolours.com