Wednesday, April 9, 2008  12:08 am 

African drums

As part of our preparations for Love Saves the Day, and also in order to shape a worthy mixtape for the awesome El Guincho gig we were involved with a couple of weeks ago, we did some researches on African music, here you have a couple of gems unearthed in the process, as well as a no wave percussive odyssey by Mi Ami which proves that the African drums of passion keep beating to this day, stronger than ever.

You excited? You better be, this is banging!

African drums are the root of almost everything we dig, the primeval stomp of blues evolving, mutating and being spliced into r&b, garage rock, punk and so forth, as well as, in a return to their droned up roots, the metronome pulse of disco and subsequent dance genres. Percussion is an affirmation and a pushing forward through this world, it is construction, destruction, sex and play, a warning, I Am Here, listen, and an invitation to join a collective celebration, dance, you don’t even need to move a finger to play the drums, or doesn’t everything begin with the beat of the heart? It also finishes with one, as we shuffle more or less gently off this mortal coil, we drum in the curious loop from zero to zero, no surprise we are so affected by their passionate call, particularly when they surround us with the fury and intensity of water flowing close to its source, hence this music.

You can see why Babatunde Olutanji’s percussive anthems were spun by David Mancuso at the Loft, they bristle with the life-affirming epic power of what would then become (eternal) disco music, inside ‘Drums of Passsion’ you confront that Masthodon lurking in the swirling shadows of every good party from whence it blows the dancers thither and yon with its mighty flame-incensing breath, a reflection of their own animal energy growing, condensating and building upon itself to reach a climax where they burn as one in blissful abandon.

I think Arthur Russell picked up a couple of tricks from here.

Babatunde Olatunji- Jin-Go-La

Babatunde Olatunji- The Beat of My Drum

The catalogue of Sublime Frequencies, that excellent label run by Hisham Mayet and Alan Bishop (of Sun City Girls fame) is one where I should like to get lost more often, as it is they released last year ‘Group Inerane: Guitars From Agadez (Music of Niger)’, a collection of fierce psychedelic Tuareg music which brings to mind something to a extent familiar, also very special, say, the Velvet Underground freaking out with OOIOO under the revolving golden dome of a furious desert storm (Mo Tucker’s drumming is strongly influenced by people such as Olatunji) and then something else completely, perhaps because inside it throbs an incandescent kernel of truth hard to find in the music produced in this (perhaps too knowing for its own good) post-modern culture we are immersed in.

Because this is the music of the people, their lives redoubtable in the beautiful cadence of shuffling drums.

Group Inerane- Tenerte

Mi Ami have us totally psyched, they are a SF trio including members from the oft-missed Black Eyes, and in their debut 12” ‘African Rhythms’ released by White Denim, they unleash a percussive no wave barrage into the very blackness of space drawing lines of power between imaginary constellations of afro-disco muscle and super-heroic noise verve, totems such as those of Liquid Liquid, Can, Lightning Bolt, Kid Creole and the Coconuts or MARS have in legends appeared to other shamans partaking in such psychedelic journeys, they are an esoteric coda for an attack plan executed with Jaguar-spirit-like carnivorous intensity which ends with our bodies cast into a sweaty spirit world of frantic shaking & twitching.

Mi Ami- African Rhythms

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Remember, we have this coming up- buy tickets here, don’t miss out!

labels >> Babatunde Olatunji, Group Inerane, Mi Ami, drums, xxjfg