Alma Afrobeat Ensemble: It's Time (Slow Walk)

 |   |  <1 min read

DWB Breakdown (DJ Quiet Cool Down emix)
Alma Afrobeat Ensemble: It's Time (Slow Walk)

As the rugby people like to say, this was a game a two halves . . . and all the action happened in the second.

Usually albums play their aces up first but this band -- mining the oh-so familiar tropes of Fela-styled Afrobeat -- doesn't offer anything you haven't already heard in the genre during the first half.

But, persistence is a small reward.

Formed in Chicago by guitarist Aaron Felder – who concedes things only started to happen for the band-name when he relocated to Barcelona a decade ago, ironically closer to Nigeria than the Windy City — AAE just get the grooves going for four typically lengthy tracks and . . . so-far so-familiar.

But the five remixes in the second half -- by  DJs Farmo, Quiet Cool Down, Phader Decale, Los Kalakos and Terrificos -- haul their stuff into far more rewarding and enjoyable territory.

With strident percussion and big bass mixed forward, there are assertive raps and canyons echoing with dubbery.

As with reggae, Afrobeat is irresistable when experienced live. But, as with the one drop, it's often only successful becase it offers the easily digestible and danceable familar, here the roiling sound created by its unimpeachable pioneer 40 years ago.

Not a lot to get excited about, but the interesting case of an album salvaged by its remixers.

Play in reverse.

(The clip below does them few favours . . . not the way to see or hear Afrobeat) 

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   World Music from Elsewhere articles index

Hossam Ramzy: Rock the Tabla (Arc Music)

Hossam Ramzy: Rock the Tabla (Arc Music)

With the kind of diverse guests only this acclaimed Egyptian percussion player could call on -- jazz drummers Billy Cobham and Manu Katche, A.R. Rahman (aka "the Mozart of Madras",... > Read more

Alex Malheiros and Banda Utopia: The Wave (Far Out/Southbound)

Alex Malheiros and Banda Utopia: The Wave (Far Out/Southbound)

The exciting reissue/remake of Sabrina Malheiros' album New Morning recently should set many listeners up for this one by her father Alex and his jazzy band, and which features Sabrina on five... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Elizabeth Stokes of the Beths

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE . . . Elizabeth Stokes of the Beths

With their fizzy, upbeat power-pop-cum-indie rock debut album Future Me Hates Me, Auckland Beths bounced straight into contention with one of the best albums of the year. It is unashamedly good... > Read more

PICASSO, THE FINAL MASK (2003): Into the void

PICASSO, THE FINAL MASK (2003): Into the void

In his last self-portrait -- a crayon on paper work done nine months before his death in 1973, at age 91 -- Pablo Picasso created a disconcerting image: the eyes wide as if terrified, the mouth... > Read more