Founded in Mogadishu (Somalia) in 1984, the original Dur-Dur Band quickly became prominent in the Somali pop music scene with its blend of funk, disco, soul and maybe a bit of reggae (according to Wikipedia, the band was inspired by Michael Jackson, Bob Marley and Santana) and the band’s popularity extended into Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. Boasting nearly 20 members with several vocalists and backing vocalists by 1987, the Dur-Dur Band recorded several albums before having to disband in the early 1990s due to deteriorating political situation in Somalia which forced band members to flee to other countries. At some point in the early 1990s, the band was based in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and made recordings there.

As a tribute to the original Dur-Dur Band, the Dur-Dur Band International was founded in London in 2011. In 2019, the Dur-Dur Band International, then an eight-piece live band, made recordings backing three Somali singers (Xabiib Sharaabi, Cabdinuur Alaale, Faadumina Hilowle) at Butterama Studios in Neukölln in Berlin, and this album is the result of those performances. It’s a very lively, often jaunty work of big-band performances but at times there appear moments of melancholy, nostalgia and longing for happy times that now seem very distant. The intriguing thing about much of the singing and the music is that it seems as much Asian in mood and style as it does African and Afro-Caribbean; this may be a reflection of the eclectic Somali culture, having taken in influences from the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and even Southeast Asia over hundreds of years as befits Somalia’s position in eastern Africa at the centre of trade networks from Europe and Africa to Asia. The singing on tracks like “Wan ka helaa” and “Hasha geel” takes me back to all those Khmer pop recordings of the 1960s and early 1970s I was hearing some 20 years ago, and the reggae-like rhythms (derived from local Somali dhaanto beats which simulate a camel’s walking rhythm) on a number of songs here also recall some early experimentation with reggae those madcap Cambodians were doing way back when before the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. At the same time, the more virtuoso singing has its parallel in the singing of famous past Ethiopian jazz and soul singers like Tilahun Gessesse and Alemayehu Eshete, and much the same can be said for the music on tracks like “Jija love”.

The songs are not very long and listening to the album right through in one sitting is worthwhile as the music is very rich in its textures and moods. Organ and synthesisers add their own distinct tones and the moods and atmospheres associated with these sounds are heady and redolent of what must have been a very rich and exuberant pop music culture in Somalia back in the 1980s. If there is one track though that pays constant revisits until the groove wears right through the vinyl record is “Duurka”, with the catchiest pop melody and chorus this side of bubblegum pop; combined with emotive singing and soaring vocals from Xabiib Sharaabi, plaintive organ tones and unearthly effects, this song is pure heaven. It encapsulates so much of what “The Berlin Session” is about: bringing together distinct sounds and genres, emotions and virtuoso performances, and a polished standard of recording that captures as much emotion and mood as possible, in a context that could only take place in Somalia or among Somali musicians.

The joy and energy that these musicians felt on being able at long last to play together again after being separated for so long from one another, living in different countries, are very palpable on “The Berlin Session”, and exuberance, along with nostalgic feeling, pain and sadness, is evident in the music. Perhaps those happy times of Somali pop from nearly 40 years ago are not so far away after all.

An infectiously joyous album with a light touch, “Sonbonbela” is the third album by Bourkina Fasso band Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band for the Sublime Frequencies label. At the time of this review, the album was set for a vinyl release in October 2022. Led by singer / main song-writer Mamadou Sanou, the Baba Commandant, and his trusty doso n’goni (a stringed instrument), the five-piece band ignite a dancefloor storm with seven songs of toe-tapping beats, rollicking percussion and pointillist psychedelic guitar solos that soar through the skies. If they wanted to, these guys could sail through the heavens forever buoyed up by extended improvised breakouts featuring guitarist Issouf Diabate’s light-fingered soloing backed by the solid rhythm section of Wendeya J J Ouedrago and Cheick Abbas Kabore but instead they go for a more minimalist approach with medium-long songs averaging about 4 – 5 minutes in length, all of them tight numbers packed with crisp drumming, spacey guitarwork and Sanou’s tough-edged vocals.

Each song on the album boasts trancey, slightly blues-tinged atmospheres and Diabate’s cosmic guitar sounds, and a couple like “Kameleba” and “Afro Mandingo” also feature some spiky, near Middle Eastern / Oriental tones that might have been marinating for hundreds of years in some remote cave or underground cavern beneath the Sahel scrublands. It’s hard to pick a stand-out track as there is hardly a moment wasted in each and every song – but just for its twangy tones and an acid-psychedelic / faux electronic middle instrumental passage, “Kameleba” wins out over the rest. A couple of later tracks “Serejugu” and the title track sound a little as though the musicians are taking things easy and simply enjoying playing together for the sheer fun of it, rather than trying to blast people off the dancefloor.

Eventually all good things have to end and the musicians must return to Earth but for about 35 minutes you’re sent into a wonderfully trancey heaven by a cosmic Afro-beat soundtrack.

As my way of farewelling Alèmayèhu Eshèté, the great Ethiopian singer of the 1960s / 70s variously nicknamed the Elvis Presley or the James Brown of Ethiopia and who died earlier this month (September 2021), I dug up this release by Philophon which reinterprets a couple of old Ethiopian jazz songs that Eshèté made famous with his soulful singing style. Side-A song “Alteleyeshegnem” gets a slinky funky hip-hop makeover from Philophon’s house band with a harsh, almost slamming beat while sinister-sounding saxophones either blare away or snake around the percussion. Eshèté’s own singing alternates from controlled crooning to soaring emotive wail and back, all in the space of just over two minutes after a long instrumental introduction. With strange mystical ambient effects in the background, the entire song has a very noirish feel. Side-B track “Temar Ledje” showcases a sweeter side to Eshèté’s singing and is altogether a more soothing and reassuring song, without skimping on the vocal gymnastics he was capable of. Conversational patter, urgent declamation, soaring ululating melismatic singing: Eshèté has it all on this song. The vibraphone instrumental solo is a beautiful little head-spinning trance addition to the sax-dominated orchestral backing.

This updating of a small part of Eshèté’s repertoire is a lovely little entrée into the work of a major Ethiopian artist, one of many who were active in Ethiopia’s jazz music scene from the 1950s onwards until 1974 – the early 1970s are regarded by many people as the Golden Age of Ethiopian jazz – when military rule began in Ethiopia and forced these musicians, seen as associated with the previous government under Emperor Haile Selassie, to either go into exile or lie low. Much of Eshèté’s work has already been collected by the Buda Musique label as part of its Ethiopiques series (volumes 9 and 22 feature his work exclusively) for those keen on hearing more of his angelic voice and adept style.

RIP Alèmayèhu Eshèté.

Originally released in 1981 by EG Records, this debut album by Ghanaian band Edikanfo (whose name in English is also the album title) proved successful commercially and generated public interest not only in the band but in the Ghanaian highlife scene where Edikanfo’s music is grounded. For a short time, the musicians in Edikanfo were sitting on top of the world, not least because the engineer and producer of their debut was famous ambient music maker Brian Eno who’d come to Ghana at the invitation of business entrepreneur / Edikanfo’s manager Faisal Helwani who had formed the band and was based at The Napoleon Club in Osu, a suburb of Accra. Unfortunately on the last day of 1981, military leader Jerry John Rawlings ousted the government in a coup, and for years afterwards Ghana’s live music scene, affected by nightly curfews, declined. Because of this, Edikanfo was cut off from the outside world and financial hardships and Ghana’s unstable politics forced the band to break up and its members went into exile across the world. Only recently have surviving band members, among them bandleader Gilbert Amartey Amar, have been able to come back together in Accra to form Edikanfo anew and to reissue and tour their album.

Eno’s contribution is a crisp production that captures the music’s lively sparkle and energy; apart from that, he leaves the band to do their Ghanaian highlife / Afro-funk / disco / jazz thang. First track “Nka Bom” has a strong 1970s blaxploitation movie soundtrack feel with the blaring trumpets, the choppy staccato melodies they sometimes use, the little organ break-outs and the urgent, insistent rhythms. “Something Lefeh-O” is a joyful, bouncy song with call-and-response type singing and buoyant horns, bass guitar and occasional effects. Each song has a different style and mood, probably because each was composed by a different member in the band; this of course means the album sounds more like a compilation than a group recording. “Gbenta” feels more funky and jazzy with a mood that seems more serious if no less joyous than the preceding song, and features some very impressive percussion / bass jamming.

The tracks that follow aren’t quite so lively and have somewhat less originality and individuality. “Blinking Eyes” seems like generic instrumental jazz rock / pop and “Moonlight Africa” seems like a compromise between some choral singing experimentation and more 70s-style instrumental jazz rock / pop noodling. “Daa Daa Edikanfo” brings back some of the earlier energy but this song and the other two tracks in this second half of the album lack the inspired, almost feverish jamming and the distinct moods of the album’s earlier half.

Never mind that the second half of the album doesn’t quite match the earlier half for energy, excitement and distinct musical identities and styles: all the way through the musicians play enthusiastically and really put their hearts and souls into this recording. When they hit their mark, the music can be great. Even when noodling down a path they should have avoided, they have a light touch and the music is still vibrant. Where the band might have gone to after this debut, had Rawlings not overthrown the government, I find hard to say given the album’s inconsistency but now that the remaining musicians have banded together again, we can all hope they can recover some if not all of the pioneering spirit that animates songs like “Nka Bom” and “Gbenta”.

…”Contemporary Alternative Rock Music”…”Moshable”…”Grunge”…”Experimental Funk”…”Primus”… Berlin trio Dog Dimension‘s accompanying promo sheet spills its evil beans to an unsuspecting world. This, their second hatchling of the year, again seeks to reactivate memoirs of a particularly grim time back in late eighties U.S.A., when ‘Funk Metal’ had its fifteen minutes under the spotlight. A sub-genre briefly championed by our music weaklies in their unerring fumbling for the (next) next big thing, with outfits such as Mr. Bungle, the execrable Fishbone, 24-7 Spyz and the aforementioned, gak, Primus filling those welcoming column inches, to the detriment of more deserving causes of course.

Sure, “Area…” is more than competently played and scored, along with the pre-requisite attention to group dynamics, noise aesthetics and the cornerstone,four-string throbbage of Josephine Lukschy. But, for example, on the cyclical urban angst of “Stuck in a Turd” (outright winner of the 2019 ‘Lost in Translation’ award), the script sadly becomes as predictable/hackneyed as the over-used electron micrographics of a head louse-type creature who has taken up residence on the album’s front sleeve.

Would it be so very terrible of me to continue to say “Make my Funk the P Funk?” Thought not!

While I’m still not ready to accept the tags of “noise, prog, blues, ambient jazz and psych” which KFJC ascribe to this music – the simple use of a phase filter doesn’t make it “psychedelic” – I can appreciate the compression, the miniaturisation process which seems to be the blueprint for their every move, as if they intend to rethink the history of music as a series of small ceramic decorative objects to fit in a tiny Tokyo apartment. I’m therefore prepared to retract my earlier sentiment that Golden Oriole are “heavy-handed”, along with other unkind epithets such as “lumbering ox-like fellows”. Nothing much is added to the overall argument by hearing the second track, but there’s more chaos on offer this time; the rhythm section are locked together for sure, yet somehow pulling in different directions at once, and an odd spastic energy is released thereby. There is also more boldness in the top layers – I hesitate to call them “guitar solos” – which are like explosions of firework-colour noise illuminating the strange underpinning rhythm.

Not half bad at all. If these crazy Norwegians ever met up with Lightning Bolt in the room, it would be like two opposing forces in physics clashing in the fourth dimension, and we’d all turn into photographic negatives of ourselves. Also available on vinyl from Mozart Kebab. From 23rd July 2018.

Within the lurid sleeve depicting producer Gabriel Séverin’s (Rob (u) rang since 2000) bared chest lurk nine pieces of electronic avant pop music; detourned somewhat with what appears to be an attempt to thread a seam of African occultism throughout. Specifically, he informs us that he employs yorùbá spells – writings and recordings thereof I’m assuming acquired himself – from trips to Nigeria and Benin. The accompanying booklet attached to the inside of the fold-over digipak includes these texts along with translations into English.

Judging by the sound of the opening track, “Le Lion Et Le Gazelle”, the esteemed Mister (u) rang is quite busy enjoying the process of recording music without paying too much attention to the detail; the music is ragged, sounds cobbled together or barely held together, with mismatched delay times while pre-set rhythm settings (a vintage Ace Tone Rhythm Ace drum machine from Rob’s own collection, no less?) predominate. But that’s the whole idea and it’s a good one. This mildly wonky approach works well with the material and results in a deliberately unbalanced listening experience.

On the third track, “Begin to understand”, Séverin credits himself with “subterranean bass guitar”. Did he actually bury it? Flute weaves around percussion samples that have blunt, soporific edges almost like what I imagine 23 Skidoo might have sounded like on Nytol. As it progresses, heavily processed harmonium courtesy of Xavier Klaine fluctuates.

Séverin covers some ground stylistically. “Àjídéwe” I could describe as acoustic breakbeat, while “Les puisatiers” – “The Well Diggers” – has a flute bed that wouldn’t sound out of place in the background at a travellers’ hostel in Goa. In the booklet in amongst the spells is a piece of text by Laszlo Umbreit – the field-recordist responsible for the Sounds of Europe website – about the physical act of digging a well: “…things get perilous 5 or 6 metres deep, because the soil grows soft again as you get close to the water. You have to know when to stop before the hole, now ten metres deep, collapses over the digger…” “Oògùn eti didi” on the other hand, is flecked with jazz with a repeated bass motif. “Ìdáàbòbò ?ba lówó ikú” features pitch-shifted vocals, heaving woodwinds and woozy electronics. Bringing things to a close, the final piece, “Oògùn éf?rí” is a maelstrom of contrasting elements; tablas spar with the trusty Rhythm Ace, buzz-saw guitars compete with what could be samples. The results are disorientating and strange.

A fine set of transporting vintage electronics mixed with medicated afro-funk elements – which in the wrong hands might result in an unholy stew of Fela Kuti meets Klaus Wunderlich – here, reminiscent of what used to be called “chill-out music” in parts, but with a sharper, darker edge. Tradition meets modernity across continents.

The same musical broad-mindedness shows up on all the songs on this CD comp, on which Marlon wrote everything, sings, and plays all the instruments…he’s turned in a hugely enjoyable set of melodic songs, with elements of funky rock, psychedelia and easy listening (he even pays tribute in song to Arthur Lee, an obvious precedent), and with his confident singing Marlon at a stroke reclaims the whole rock’n’soul thing from Hall And Oates, in the service of his highly original songs. Very impressed by Marlon’s facility with playing and singing music, and the unfussy production technique is also a winning plus on both records. Incidentally the 1986 12-incher was produced by Jeff Murdock, who played with Cherry in The Streets Living Theater on their sole record in 1983. The front cover painting to this one, depicting a mysterious urban tragedy, is by Alexander Clark. Delighted to hear this (to me) unknown gem, from 28th October 2016.