Mar 302013
Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
Townsman Slim Jade is back with another edition of Saturday Night Shut-In for your listening and discussing pleasure. Isn’t it time we listen to the music, then compare notes? I think so.
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I really like what I’ve heard from Antibalas. I’ve never had the nerve to test the waters of Afrobeat for fear of coming across like a trendy hipster. Are there any other entry points I should be looking at?
There’s Fela Kuti, of course. Personally, though, I like his music up until he starts singing.
I find, then, that it’s really the instrumentation I like, and the groove, with all due respect to the political content of the lyrics in Afrobeat.
I have an Afrobeat playlist on my iTunes that includes:
Konono No. 1 -“Lufuala Ndonga”
Orchestre Tout Puissant – “Ditshe Tsheiekutala
Antibalas -“Uprising”
King Chango – “African Fever”
Tony Allen -“Hustler”
The Daktaris -“Upside Down”
The Budos Band -“The Volcano Song”
Nomo -“Fourth Ward”
The Daktaris – “Daktari Walk”
The Budos Band -“Ghostwalk”
Chicago Afrobeat Project -“Jekajo”
Ghetto Blaster -“Na Waya”
Nomo -“All the Stars”
Antibalas -“Paz”
I like a lot of Antibalas and a sort of related group called Ocote Soul Sounds, but again, I can’t quite relate or share in the radical politics.
Nomo’s “Ghost Rock” is a pretty cool album. They’re from Michigan,of all places, and they include Warn Defever from His Name Is Alive.
Tony Allen was Fela’s drummer, and he lends great percussion to any project he’s involved with, including Damon Albarn, Pulp, and Charlotte Gainsbourg collabs.
One of the recent innovations in African music is this junkyard aesthetic of playing amped up home-made thumb pianos, and the first two songs on my iTunes list have a lot of that.
I am schooled !!
Great mix to play while working today, Slim, and trying to keep my mind off the intense excitement and anxiety I’m feeling over the start of 2 baseball seasons this week, both the MLB and the old man’s league I’m playing in. I especially liked the 2 guitar songs that led up to the Walker Brothers. One band was Pink Floyd, if memory serves. Gotta love the bullfighting music too! 🙂 Finally, I’m a sucker for the sound of organ in Afrobeat music, like that last song. The organ in that kind of music challenges the sound of an organ in garage rock.
My pleasure!
The previous guitar song was Coda Maestoso in F Flat Minor, by Earth. If you don’t know Earth, they’re pretty cool. I’m not that into metal, but Earth play a droning sort of slowed-down Sabbath/Melvins kind of thing. Dylan Carlson, the mainstay of the band, infamously gave Kurt Cobain the gift of a shotgun.
Right, Earth. I’ve got a couple of their songs in my collection.
If you get a chance to see the touring production of Fela!, definitely do it. The music is Fela Kuti, arrangements by Antibalas and the full costume and dance production makes for a quite an impressive production.
Dylan Carlson is a dirtbag of the highest order.