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$15.99 CD
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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Next Stop Soweto
(Strut)
 "Umkhovu" Mahlathini & the Queens
"Take Off" Tempo All Stars
As many of you know, I'm probably the biggest nerd in the store when it comes to international music, particularly from Africa, France, and Japan. The past few years have been a veritable treasure trove for Afro jams, and it finally feels like labels which float in a rather specific orbit of cool have started to think outside of the Nigerian and Ghanese boxes, looking to new regions for inspiration and credibility. South Africa was one of the first regions whose music broke past the confines of specialized audiences into a wider pop-conscious listener group, thanks to outside interest and efforts by Western stars like Paul Simon and his ubiquitous Graceland album. Malcolm McLaren made most of his classic Duck Rock album with a mixure of NYC hip-hop DJs and the cream of Soweto's Zulu Jive musicians, and before either of them set foot in the region, downtown NYC no wave siren Lizzy Mercier Descloux traveled to South Africa in 1983, during apartheid no less, to work with its musicians for her classic self-titled third album. Vampire Weekend picked up that torch conceptually, copping moves from a number of African guitarists but also bouncing to the Indestructible Beat of Soweto, and you can't read a single Other Music Update lately without one of us calling some band of milky-fleshed college kids "tropical" and citing African influences.
South Africa, to my ears, has some of the most joyous, propulsive, and melodic music ever made anywhere. I am a HUGE fan of what has alternately been called jive, township music, Mbaqanga, and a few other variations on these names. Jazz is a defining influence, but so is choral music, and the guitars in Joburg (that's Johannesburg, the cultural and musical epicenter for this sound) sound like no others. Soweto's beat is indeed indestructible, but even more indestructible is the joyous abandon with which this music is played. This is the sound of the streets, of the working man, of the people. Heavyweights like Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela got their start in township jive bands, and honestly recorded some of their most enthralling, soulful music during those early years. Much of Soweto's golden age of jive has been sorely unavailable on disc these past 20 years, and it wasn't particularly easy to find the stuff pre-Graceland, either. The township sound is much more raw than most of what has typically made it out of the region and found worldwide audiences, and it's an absolute delight to have this collection, and the two volumes that Strut have announced are to follow it, available.
You'd be hard-pressed to uncover more beautiful harmonies, more robust horns, and more surefooted a step than the grooves collected here, and if you've never heard the Earth-moving throat of Mahlathini, one of Soweto's most cherished and unique vocalists (imagine a South African Howlin' Wolf or Captain Beefheart and you're heading in the right direction), you're in for a treat. The transfers sound great, the tunes are for the most part all making their CD debut, and the liner notes are a fantastic primer on the history of this sound, completely overdue and ripe for rediscovery by a new generation of record buyers. This collection features 20 tracks of some of the best music on Earth. It's time for those five magic words you love to see me write in these emails: Afro Jam of the Week!! [IQ]
Order CD by Texting "omcdvariousnext" to 767825 |
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