Ripples Around the World - Featuring Elikeh, Janaka, and King Sunny Ade

 Final exams.  A beach.  A roaring fire.  Some mind-altering fungi.  And King Sunny Ade.

Such was my first excursion into the magical world of African music.  After a beach blow-out, I remember sitting on the floor of Greg's apartment, King Sunny's Synchro System playing at a low volume.  I remember floating within the music, levitating across the talking drum, drifting along with those amazing, serpentine guitar lines.  From that moment, I was hooked.  A near lifetime love affair that has only grown deeper with time.

Admittedly, African music, and world music in general, isn't for everyone.  Languages have to be overcome.  Unfamiliar song structures have to be overlooked.  But once you dip into that world, music will never be the same.  When you want to turn down the noise, when you want to dance, when you want something uplifting and buoyant, or aggressive and defiant.  It's there.

Even our good buddy Ray over at Ray's Realm fell under the spell of Amadou and Miriam's The Magic Couple, about as mesmerizing and haunting a release from any genre that we'd heard in a while.

With that in mind, and with the celebrated release of a brand spanking new King Sunny album, let us, oh waverider, drift on back down to that magical place and see what the world of World Music has in store for us this month.

Elikeh – Adje! Adje!


Afropop from Togo via Washington D.C., and let me tell you, we really got something here.  Togolese singer-guitarist Massama Dogo combines afrobeat, rock, roots, and jazz into one trance-inducing, pulse-throbbing mass of sound called “Afro-high.”

And high it is. Elikeh’s new album, Adje Adje! brings forth all the beautiful polyrhythmic passion that makes afropop so delightful, and blends in some serious guitar, some soaring horns, and some gorgeous vocal harmonies.  Jubilant, buoyant, festive. Dogo’s lyrics, sung in English, French and the African languages of Ewe and Mina are layered over the nonstop percussive festival that is afrofunk.

I don’t know what each particular song means.  In fact, my digital copy of the album doesn’t even have separate song titles, just “Track 1,” and “Track 2”, etc.  But this doesn’t bother me.  Rather than concentrating on each individual track, when I play Adje! Adje! I take in the whole album at once.  One joyous, rebellious celebration of freedom, percussion, rhythm and dance.   Beats blend into horns into guitars into vocals back into beats.  The entire album percolates and pulsates, as if it wants to jump out of the player and dance itself.   Even the songs that are clearly revolutionary mantras bubble with a totally infectious spirit of dance and life. Truly magnificent. 

If you are a fan of afropop of any kind, King Sunny to Fela to Toure Kunde, you will find lots to love here.  If you’ve never explored afropop before, but wanted a recommendation on a new album to go with the classics of the genre, look no farther.  Adje! Adje! has arrived. 

Buy here: Adje!Adje!

Janaka Selekta – Pushing Air

Incorporating Indian textures with downbeat groove and vibrancy, San Francisco DJ Janaka Selekta has created what may be the downtempo album of the year. 

Rich aural passages flow seamlessly like water gently cascading through a wild brook.  Beats add and accentuate the passages without ever overwhelming the overall effect, one of transcendental mediation set to the dancefloor.   Beautiful, evocative, rhythmic, seductive.  Just a few words to describe the airy, spirituality of the album.

"Awake" soothes with its bass heavy hypnosis, layered with the air of the exotic.  "The Escapist," is just that, a mind-bending, or mind-releasing journey out of the self, riding the sitar to nirvana.   Strident beats, a destination. "Reborn" sounds as fresh as it's name implies with angelic female Hindi vocals.

All of us, no matter how hard we rock, need to take a few moments now and then to chill, let the noise settle, the spirit soar.  For that, let Janaka be your guide.

A chill out journey worth taking.

Buy here:  Pushing Air

King Sunny Ade – Baba Mo Tunde

And finally we get to the master himself.  The man who began my entire odyssey with African music and then world music as a whole.  King Sunny Ade is a legend the master of Juju, a form of African music based on spiraling, snaking, hypnotic guitar lines, weaving and bobbing in and out of the call and response vocals, and the ever present talking drum.

Rhythm is the king here, punctuated with King Sunny’s mellow voice and serpentine guitar.  There really are no words to describe King Sunny’s music.  Going to one of his shows is a vast, undulating, meditative, hypnotic experience where music is the Lord, rhythm is the Church and King Sunny is the pastor.  12, 15 people on stage, who knows how many.  Drummers, percussionists, singers, guitarists, bassist, keyboard players.  And drummers, did I say drummers?  Lots of drummers.  6 hour long sets.  Sweat.  Dancing, swirling, spinning, and sweat.

It is a music to experience, to feel, not to analyze.  And as the first album the King Sunny has recorded in ten years, Baba Mo Tunde takes its place right along side his classics.  In fact, “Baba Loun Sohun Gbogbo” ranks right up with Synchro System as definitive King Sunny.  Just close your eyes and let it all flow over you.  Let your body loose, hips swaying, mind floating.  A heady, uplifting, aural orgasm.

--Racer

Buy here: Baba Mo Tunde








I couldn't find any videos from the new King Sunny album, but here's a classic older track to give you a taste.

Salif Keita - La Difference

The descendant of warrior princes, the son of two black African parents, Afro-pop pioneer Salif Keita was born “white.” Inheriting albinism, a lack of skin pigmentation, Keita instantly stood out among other Africans and stood out as a spokesperson for tolerance in all forms.

On La Différence, the legendary singer addresses this deeply personal issue–albinism in Africa—and gives it an urgent global resonance that takes his songs from Bamako to Beirut. As Keita’s famed “golden voice” cathartically croons in the title track, "I'm a black man, my skin is white and I like it, it's my difference/I'm a white man, my blood is black, I love that, it's the difference that's beautiful."

The distinction is often interpreted as an ill omen in his native Mali, and invited a life of ridicule, making Keita an outcast in his own community. Society, including public schools in Mali, perpetuates harmful beliefs about albinos, and they are often shunned, ridiculed, and even killed for superstitious purposes.

Although he and others have come to terms with albinism, Keita has struggled long and desperately with the stigma attached to his skin color. Though born into a noted caste of musicians with direct links to Sounjata Keita–the heroic 13th-century warrior-prince who edified the ancient Malian Empire–Keita was forbidden to play music growing up. He was also disowned by his father, kicked out of school, and rejected by the local aristocracy.

Filled with unrealized musical ambitions, Keita had no choice but to leave Mali as a young man. Armed with the strength of his convictions, he travelled to neighboring Ivory Coast, then Paris, London, and New York, where his skin color could not keep him from expressing his artistic vision. His perseverance paid off throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as he became an internationally recognized icon thanks to his gravely voice, innovative musical arrangements, and profoundly poetic lyrics.

In 1997, Keita’s fame helped him to overcome the stigma attached to albinism that persisted in West Africa, allowing him to make a triumphant return to Mali. Cautiously re-entering a community that once shunned him, he discovered a newfound acceptance, which allowed him to re-establish roots there, including building a studio in the capital of Bamako.

La Différence is the latest in a trilogy of acclaimed acoustic oriented recordings (Moffou 2002, M’Bemba 2006) that were primarily recorded at Keita’s Bamako studio. The intimate acoustic environment of La Différence allows Keita’s vocal timbres to shimmer and soar, highlighting their poetic nuances and the poignant themes of his lyrics. While the album is dedicated to the plight of albinos in Africa, leading with its title track that aims to increase the global awareness of this cause, the remainder of the album delves into a wide range of social and political issues.

Over a thick sanguine female vocal chorus and rhythmic guitar riffs, “Ekolo d’Amour” seeks to inform listeners about the ecological devastation that has befallen Africa. Fusing the powerful traditional tones of the 21-stringed kora with a contemporary guitar-rich, down-tempo, polyrhythmic groove, “San Ka Na” cites a specific example of ecological destruction, alerting audiences of the need to protect Africa’s Niger River, upon whose banks Keita played as a child. With a rough and urgent voice, Keita scorns local politicians for their neglect and complacency regarding such problems.

La Différence also finds the singer re-imagining a few previous recordings with a new palette of sounds. Harnessing the deeply echoing, bluesy textures of guest guitarists Bill Frisell and Seb Martel, an intimate rendition of 1995’s “Folon” offers a stripped-down, horn-absent version that allows Keita’s haunting voice to pierce the mellow cosmopolitan soundscape. With producer John Henry, Keita reaches back to the 1970s, recalling his days with the Ambassadeurs du Motel band in Bamako, with a new incarnation of “Seydou.”

Departing from the original track (“Seydou Bathily”), this softer version bathes Keita’s voice in a rich sonic world of resonant vocal refrains, Arabic-tinged string arrangements, interlocking guitar tones, and a multilayered percussion ensemble that merges sounds from Africa and the Middle East. Given that these songs have been refined by Keita and his band over the course of many years, some for decades, it is no wonder why his delivery comes across with a relaxed, sophisticated confidence.

Further linking La Différence with Keita’s long musical career, the melody of “Djélé” is decorated by the intricate balafon work of Keletigui Diabaté, a monumental figure in Malian music and one of Keita’s most faithful musical partners, helping him to develop as a guitarist over the course of almost four decades. Drawing on his international sojourns, “Djélé” reinforces Keita’s cosmopolitan approach to this album as the breathy tones of an accordion dance with a concert piano over top a bed of deep electric bass, legato orchestral strings, plucked African lutes, and a global array of polyrhythmic percussive timbres.

La Différence is an intimate journey into Keita’s personal struggles. Singing a hymn of universal tolerance Keita poetically claims, "some of us are black, some are white/all that difference has a purpose…for us to complete each other/let everyone receive love and dignity/the world will be a more beautiful place.”

-- provided to the Ripple by World Music News Wire

buy here: La Difference

Ripples Around the World – Featuring Mr. Something Something, Jorge Strunz and EarthRise SoundSystem

Mr. Something Something - Shine Your Face

Back in the late ‘80’s a new music movement swept through San Francisco like a tsunami.  World Beat was a fusion of rock, soul, Latin, and world music elements, all fused into one politically charged, massive-booty swinging rhythmic orgy.  Bands like the Looters and Zulu Spear took charge there, blasting their uproarious world fusion to pulsating throngs, dancing in the streets, swinging from light posts, sweating in the nightclubs.  At that time, I was massively into African bands like Toure Kunda, King Sunny Ade, and Fela, as well as being fully immersed in reggae from Black Uhuru, Mutabaruka, and Augustus Pablo, amongst others.  I was also DJing a weekly reggae show at KSDT FM.  As a former sworn metalhead, World Beat gave me a new sound to latch onto, combining the dynamic rhythms and pulsating beats of my new found musical love with the flat out familiar rock elements of my former home.  World Beat came and I bought the ticket, sold the farm, and joined the band.

Someday I still mean to get the Looters reviewed in these pages, but currently, my ears are wrapping around a sound so familiar in intent, but so totally fresh, that I haven’t found the time to dig those old Looters LP’s out.  Mr. Something Something, coming from Toronto, take all the blazing dancefloor passionate, polyrhythmic experience of Nigeria and Ghana, and add a glorious amount of good ol'
soul and funk to create an intoxicating blend of their own world beat mania.  Adding a solid horn section into the mix of afrobeat guitar, percolating bass and impossible-to-resists beats, keeps the party flowing like a 24-hour soundsystem.  Toss in their “green life” beliefs (a recent concert was powered entirely by fans generating electricity on bicycle rigs) and political savvy and we got something Mr. Something Something affectionately calls “dancefloor activisim.”

And who am I to argue that.  Imagine the best of Johnny Clegg and Savuka, mixed with my old time favorites The Looters.  Beats don’t just come at you, they surround you, lift you up by the hips and start shaking them all on their own.  The arrangements are complex and layered and the soul is achingly fresh.  And best of all, underneath it all there beats a heavy rock and roll heart.

It’s a party for your ears and your butt..  Afropop at it’s finest.

buy here: Shine Your Face


http://www.mrsomethingsomething.com/2009/06/03/shine-your-face-tonight/

Jorge Strunz – Neotropical Nocturnes

In truth, there’s not much that I can say about Jorge Strunz.  As half of the neo-flamenco guitar duo Strunz and Farah, I’d gobbled up each album of their delectable guitar feasts like a man eating his first bite after a hunger strike.  Emerging to prominence around the same time that Ottmar Liebert’s star took flight, Strunz and Farah wove and picked and strummed and crafted some of the most gorgeous, intricate, and impassioned neo-flamenco ever released to human ears.  If the thought of a warm afternoon patio, a glass of breathing red wine and flamenco sounds like your idea of a party, any Strunz and Farah album would fit the bill for your soundtrack to heaven.

Now, releasing a solo disc, Jorge Strunz brings all that passion, precision, technique and magic to Neotropical Nocturnes, and the results are nothing short of magnificent.  Let’s be honest, I’m a rock and roll writer (if that). I can’t tell you what Jorge is doing with his picking hand, or his technique of simultaneously strumming as the whips our arpeggios at mind-boggling speed.  I don’t have the words to describe the beauty of his notes, but let it suffice to say, they are beautiful.  Romantic.  Exotic.  Alluring.  I could break out my thesaurus to find more words, but I'd rather not.  I'd rather just sit here and listen to the music.

Strunz’s guitar is like a musical magic carpet blessed with the power to lift you up and carry you away.  Enchanted lands await. 

No fan of flamenco guitar should miss this one.

buy here: Neotropical Nocturnes

http://www.strunzandfarah.com/

EarthRise SoundSystem – The Yoga Sessions

Contrary to any images the name may conjure, EarthRise SoundSystem’s, The Yoga Sessions, aren’t slow, new-agey tunes designed to numb the corporate-mindset while they adopt strange positions and stretch their backs.  Mixing Eastern voices, instruments, and thoughts with some serious downtempo beats and chill bass, this is luscious yogic lounge music of the highest order.  Anyone who’s ever spent any time in a Hindi ashram knows how beautiful the bhajans can be.  What EarthRise does is take the pulse of those bhajans and marry them to Western beats and rhythms, creating a heavenly, pulsing, throbbing, intoxicating blend of Hindi-chill.

Again, there’s way too much pulse here to use it as background music while you wrangle your body out of “downward dog” pose into “cobra.”  But that’s not the intent.  Think of this as a sumptuous late night chill album, or an early Sunday morning coffee riser and you’ll get the feeling. 

Exotic in flavor, spiritual in nature, the vocals float and dance above the lingering dancefloor beat.  Basses throb in sensual pulses, approaching a point of complete higher-self eroticism. “Intention” leads us off, with its prayer of a vocal chant, repetitive in nature, blessing us as we embark on this journey. Harmonies layer on, building softy over the heartbeat of bass.   Songs like “Dash Nayad,” could create a swirling throng of heated bodies on any late-night dance floor. Forget all thoughts of this being a “world beat” album, this is just addictive down-tempo chill.  Perfect for calming the night, settling the soul. “Daylight as Sunset” reminds me of some of the best of Si*Se, throbbing downbeat lounge. 

I’m always on the lookout for a good chill album to calm the ears after all the metal, punk, and garage we get at the Ripple.  Previously, my favorite recommendation would’ve been to check out the Angel Beach 3-CD set.  Now, I got EarthRise SoundSystem and all is right in Ripple world.

--Racer

buy here: Yoga Sessions: Earthrise Soundsystem

http://www.earthrisesoundsystem.com/

Mr Something Something (song not from this album)


Jorge Strunz (song not from this album)