Fusing aspects of traditional African music with jazz and what feels like an organic approach to electro, Manu Dibango’ s ‘Electric Africa’ has some similarities to his most famous track, ‘Soul Makossa’. The saxophone breaks, the vocals, the languid progression. It’s a little bit more polished though, and spontaneous enough to not feel contrived when the keys break loose just past the halfway mark, (Herbie Hancock, no less). Produced by Bill Laswell and issued on his Celluloid label, this track dominates an album which, at the time, was seen as quite cutting edge in the way it blends those genres already mentioned. Also quite prescient for its time, coming a year before Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’, which was unavoidable for large stretches of the eighties.
No comments:
Post a Comment