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.

Chillin' with the Rip - Featuring Alex Cuba, Me'Shell Ndegeocello, Brookville, and Puracane

Sometimes you just want to turn off the noise.  Find something with a gentler vibe, more soothing, less harsh.  With that in mind, we present another in our occasional columns of Ripple recommendations for music to Chill to.

Alex Cuba - Agua Del Pozo

Quite some time ago, my wife and I ditched society and decided to spend the night out on my father's sailboat.  Not to go sailing, mind you, just to use it as a floating hotel.  We'd been working too hard, felt stressed and just wanted to get away.  The boat was the perfect place.  Just sleeping in a different place, out on the water, was rejuvenating.  The next morning as we awoke we heard the most amazing music; gentle, floating harmonies, lilting voices, angelic acoustic guitars.  That music brought us into the morning as the sun was rising.  Grabbing a cup of coffee, I asked the guy in the boat next door who that fantastic singer was.  Alex Cuba was his reply.

Alex Cuba is truly the new face of Latin soul.  Cuban by birth, but living in Canada, Alex Cuba's music is about as jovial and transcendent as you can imagine.  Alex's voice is smooth as the water was that early morning.  His music exudes a spiritual sense of harmony and purpose, and the melodies . . . ah, the melodies.

It doesn't matter where you drop the needle on this baby, you're going to find some simply moving Latin acoustic guitar dancing in and around a mellow Latin beat.  This isn't get up and dance, shake your "vida loca" music, Alex's music is deeply reflective, nearly sublime.  Sure it's all in Spanish, but it doesn't take a translator to express the sentiment of loss in "Lamento," or the reaching to the sky optimism of "Amor Infinito."   Emotion is emotion, truth is truth, and Alex Cuba is an artist very capable of finding that truth.  A simply gorgeous album.

buy here: Agua del Pozo



Me'shell Ndegeocello - Devil's Halo

There are only a small handful of artists who's music I'll buy completely unheard.  Nothing more than a mention that there's a new album out and I'll get it.  Not only that, but I'll find all the extended mixes, buy the singles, and pray for a live bootleg to make it's way somewhere within my arm's reach.  Me'shell Ndegeocello is one such artist.  Ever since her stunning debut of roustabout feminist groove funk, Plantation Lullabies, I've been under Me'shell's spell, and never once has she failed to deliver.

Now, what does that last sentence really mean?  Have I loved unabashedly everything she's ever done? No, not really.  But I've never failed to respect it.  Meshell's not an artist willing to ever sit still.  After carving out two dynamite urban funk albums, she changed gears completely with the mellow somberness of Bitter, then launched herself into freeform jazz territory, always bringing her amazing, looping bass with her.  With this, her latest album, Me'shell once again refuses to be pigeonholed.

Mixing in tones of rock, ambient and even noise rock with her under belly of funk and soul, Me'shell has produced a devastating album of love lost and vulnerability.  Never before has she worn her heart so openly on her sleeve and so clearly bruised and bleeding.  Songs like "Mass Transit," bounce with a familiar Ndegeocello funk (you gotta dig her bass line and vocal phrasing) but even there, the song is sparser, more bare, nearly raw.  On other songs like "Slaughter," and "Lola" the pain is so thick it hangs like a funeral tapestry.  With lyrics like "Don't say you love me/I'll run away/my love will lead you to slaughter/if you see me coming, I'd run the other way," you know we're in for something intense.

And intense it is.  Through the ambient tones of "Tie One On," through the addiction spiral of "Lola" all the way to the ending "Crying in Your Beer," Me'shell has produced a captivating album that drips with the rawness of emotion.  And through it all, Me'shell's voice has never sounded better, smoother, more refined.  At times, her tone almost sounds like Sade, and that's meant as a high compliment, not an insult, as her tone works perfectly here.

Once again, Me'shell has mystified me.  Once again I'm captivated.

Buy here: Devil's Halo



Brookville - Broken Lights

This album took me entirely by surprise.  Don't know what I expected.  Maybe something bluesy, maybe something country-ish?  Not here.  Brookville play a mesmerizing blend of slow-to-mid-tempo, neo-jazzy modern rock.  Immediately names like Prefab Sprout popped into my mind (particularly on the male and female vocal interplay of "Break My Heart.").   Then came other names like The Blue Nile, Level 42, Aztec Camera, and Ripple favorites, The Philosopher Kings.  All great purveyors of mood and nuance.

And that's what we have here.  A beautiful album of mood and nuance.  Crystal clear guitars highlight the gentle tone, leaving tons of room for some of the lushest melodies you'll ever hear. "Happy" is anything but, a song dripping with the pain of deception and lies.  But you wouldn't know that from the melody.  It simply soars and floats, instantly catchy, instantly addictive.  "Great Mistake," follows suit with just a hint of more buoyancy in the lilting tempo, while the lyrics reach into the deepest realm of juxtaposition.  "If you really love me,  you would let me make the great mistake of leaving you."  One listen to the hypnotic melancholy of "Dreaming On," and I was hooked for life.

Andy Chase, the lead man in Brookville, has crafted an album more of tone than actual beat.  The darkness of a somber sky hangs over this album like a field of crushed and empty dreams.  But rather than being a downer, the pure melodicsm of Andy's writing keeps the album from ever becoming cliche, or melodramatic, or even a downer.  It's strange when an album of ambivalent love can come across so pleasant, but there you have it.  Not one to miss.

Buy here: Broken Lights


Puracane - I've Been Here the Longest

Chill out music is supposed to fill that late night gap after the clubs have closed but before the day has broken into full intensity.  When I think of chill out, or trip hop, I tend to think of bands like Massive Attack or Portishead.  And now I'll add Puracane to that list.

Essentially a duo, Puracane is a collaborative effort between composer/producer Juan Massotta and singer/lyricist Ali Rogers, and also combines the talents of Chris Lee on bass, Emilio Teubal on keyboards and Antonio"Uka" Gameiro on drums. Coming purely from the world of British trip-hop (Rogers has worked with Tricky among others), Puracane still manage to sound unlike any of their predecessors by incorporating some strong songwriting craft, actual singable melodies and some gentle R&B groove. Throughout the album, the rhythms have a steady consistency, which perfectly fits the songs' come-down-from-a-rough-night feeling.

From the first moment of undulating bass, to the very second that Ali adds her heavenly vocals, I can already feel the tension of my day melting away.  This isn't ambient, background music.  The bass, the melodies, the beat demand your attention, but in a groovy way.  Not a scream, just an insistence based on that groove.  That always present groove.  Fans of the above bands shouldn't miss this one.

Buy here: I've Been Here The Longest

--Racer