PAPA WEMBA & KOFI OLOMIDE: Wake Up! (Sonodisc)
KOFI OLOMIDE is back, this time pairing his smooth baritone with Wemba’s soaring falsetto for an album released last month. It sits firmly in the soukous tradition: plenty of soloing guitars, layered percussion and infectious sebene breaks on almost every track (for much of which we can thank axeman Bemiko Zero-Faute). Like the soukous of the 1970s and 1980s, you have to dance to this. For me, though, the album’s greatest strength is in its showcasing of two truly beautiful male voices. Down at the Zairean record store, they’re voting Moussoukou Soukou top track; in truth, it’s hard to choose on what could easily be the top rhumba release of the year.
BONGA: Swinga Swinga (Piranha)
IF Kofi Olomide is one of Africa’s smoothest singers, Angolan Bonga’s rasping, husky baritone places him at the opposite end of the scale – but nonetheless, his is also a beautiful voice. Bonga can sound like a harp, a horn or a rattle. Yet on ballads, the voice whispers and cries, imbued with typical Lusophone saudade (melancholy). On this live release, recorded in Germany, he moves back towards the traditional feel of his 1970s band, Batuki, with a generous use of traditional instrumentation and a repertoire based heavily on Kimbundu rhythms like the sembe. There’s also a feel of Brazil, where the singer is now a popular visitor. Top track, for once, is not the omnipresent Mariquinha, but possibly the heartbreaking ballad Olhos Molhados. It’s a pity that the recording quality is so flat and lacking in brightness; otherwise, this is an album that should win hearts all the way from Rio to Orange Grove.
MADELA KUNENE: Kon’ko Man (B&W)
CLASSIFY Kunene as a “Zulu guitarist” and you might think of flashy high-speed fingering and a solid dance-oriented rhythm. But this Zulu guitarist is a highly personal and original player, with a more thoughtful approach. His playing taps into the far older African tradition of seamless, cyclical musical patterning. Here, his producers (among them Robert Trunz, Airto Moreira and Pops Mohammed) have built on that to create music almost in the trance/house genre, with generous showcasing for Mabi Thobejane’s magical percussion. I wonder if South African dance DJs will be able to abandon their prejudices for long enough to recognise this album’s potential?
BILL WHELAN: Riverdance (Celtic Heartbeat)
THIS is the music from the show, one of London’s most successful for years – perhaps because it succeeds in reducing the Irish question to harmless whimsy and picturesque dances. But, that said, the album is much better than you might expect. There are points when the lush and soaring orchestra overpowers fiddle and bodhran and points when the melodies are simply trite. But the traditional tunes have great charm, and the playing (particularly Maire Breatnach on fiddle) retains enough character to be convincing throughout. Whelan’s borrowings from East European and Spanish traditions add variety to the mix. Even if you prefer your Celtic music rougher and cleaner (and I still do), don’t dismiss this out of hand.