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“Pop Yeh Yeh: Psychedelic Rock from Singapore and Malaysia-1964-1970” (Sublime Frequencies, 2013)

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Sublime Frequencies’ first new compilation after a long dormant spell is quite an ambitious one, as compiler Carl Hamm spent almost 8 years researching this project. That effort shows, as his liner notes could probably be stretched into a book with minimal effort. As for the music: anyone expecting the titular “psychedelic rock” or even anything particularly outré is likely to be disappointed by 85% of the material, but the Malaysian interpretation of ’60s Western rock and pop is otherwise quite enjoyable and catchy (though not as endearingly wonky as some of the Thai pop that SF has previously unearthed).

As near as I can tell, this is the first ever major Western compilation of Malaysian rock, but Malaysia’s story is quite similar to that of Thailand: Cliff Richard and the Shadows played a gig in Singapore and an entire generation immediately bought electric guitars and started playing every party and talent show they could possibly find. Of course, The Beatles also managed to insinuate their way into the national consciousness, as the short-lived Pop Yeh Yeh genre retroactively got its name from the chorus of “She Loves You.” 

The phenomenon only lasted about five years, beginning when Malaysian musicians started to actually write songs in Malay rather than English and began dissipating around 1970 due to the influences of Bollywood, Indonesian music, and (later) disco. Pop Yeh Yeh was huge while it lasted though, as its major figures were fixtures in the nation’s gossip and culture magazines, a fact that is extremely surreal given that most of them were still maintaining day jobs like normal, non-rocking people.

Most of the songs sound a lot like a surf-damaged early Beatles with female vocals: short, formulaic pop structures, strong melodies, and quite a bit of cool twanging guitar riffage. Most of the exceptions originate later in the ’60s, as quite a few groups added an organ. While that may seem synonymous with ’60s psychedelia, it is mostly just employed to play chord progressions or simple melodic lines (I guess no one could find Iron Butterfly records in Singapore, which is probably for the best: there is absolutely no excess or self-indulgence to be found on this collection at least). The few real nods to psychedelia come from A. Halim, Salim I, Nur Azila, and M. Said, all of whom seem to have invested in fuzz and wah-wah pedals. Of those artists, A. Halim & De’Fictions probably boast the most searing guitar solos, but it is M. Said & Le Ramaja who seem most categorically intent on kicking out the jams.

Most of the musical highlights, however, tend to be fairly straightforward pop with strong melodies and clean, surf-y lead guitar, like Roziah Lateef & The Jayhawkers’ “Aku Kecewa.” There are two particularly strong aberrations though: Siti Zaiton & The Twilites’ “Rindu” features some fairly wild sax playing, while Zaliha Hamid and Orkes Zindegi’s “Bertemasha (Party Time!)” completely steals the show with its exuberantly yodeled chorus (must have been quite a party). In general, however, there is not anything especially brilliant or revelatory here, just a solid batch of likable pop songs.

Hamm helpfully provides translations of the lyrics, which greatly enhanced my enjoyment of some songs. For example, M. Said’s raucous barn-burner is about a “joyful party” and features lines like “It’s a joyful party, a celebration! Greeted gloriously.” and “Wow! Dance!” I was even more impressed by Nur Azila’s foray into psychedelia, as it contains the profoundly un-psychedelic couplet “Take a look at your prospective son-in-law, I’m in love with a responsible man.” 

Carl’s liner notes, while quite scholarly, also contain some fascinating trivia: J. Sham of J. Sham and the Wanderers, for example, is a cat-breeding enthusiast and was once president of the Malaysian Cat Club! I was also amused to learn that Sham’s contribution to the collection is written as a letter rather than a song, as he was learning about Surrealism in art class at the time.

Along with simply being the only real Malay rock compilation available outside of Malaysia, the greatest achievement of Pop Yeh Yeh is definitely Hamm’s exhaustive, picture-heavy liner notes. While they can be somewhat dry or seemingly repetitive at times (many of the artists have very similar stories), they are as definitive and well-researched as anything put out by Soundway, Folkways, or Dust-to-Digital and provide as effective a crash-course in Malaysian rock and youth culture as could possibly be expected (especially coming from a non-Malaysian).

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“Angola Soundtrack: Special Sounds from Luanda 1965-1978” (Analog Africa, 2012)

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Hopelessly smitten by Buda Musique’s long-defunct series of albums devoted to Angola, Analog Africa’s Samy Ben Redjeb decided to try to pick up where his predecessors left off. Characteristically, he quickly discovered that such an endeavor was much more convoluted and challenging than he had ever imagined, but ultimately made it through the gauntlet of denied visas, obligatory bribes, prohibitively expensive hotels, and ill-timed food poisoning to assemble what is possibly his finest compilation to date.

There is something about adversity tends to result in great music, and conditions don’t get much adverse than those in Angola during the time of these recordings. For one thing, the country was the battleground for the Colonial War from 1961 to 1975, as Angolan revolutionaries fought to expel their Portuguese rulers. Then, that finally accomplished, the country immediately plunged into a 27-year long civil war and a whole lot of poverty and social unrest. 

Even today, Angola has the world’s second lowest life expectancy. Of course, the arguable silver lining to all that death and misery is that nobody had the time or patience for frivolity, self-indulgence, over-orchestration, over-production, or pretension in their music: these guys were lucky to just be cutting records and tried like hell to make them count. In fact, hardly anyone even seems to have had access to a horn section: just a guitar, a bass, whatever percussion they could get together, and maybe an occasional organ. It is unfortunate that these bands were so stripped down out out of sheer necessity, but it is an aesthetic that suits my discerning ears quite well.

Much like many of the other exciting and highly localized music explosions that have been anthologized recently, the prime period for music in Angola coincided with a collision of African and Latin influences. It also coincided with a strong desire to create a distinct Angolan sound to assert their cultural independence from Portugal. For the most part, the Latin influence makes itself felt mostly through driving, vibrant percussion and simple, insistent bass lines. 

The African elements, on the other hand, manifest themselves most strongly in the clean, intricate guitar lines. The blending of cultures gets a bit blurrier than just that though, as touches of American surf music and other esoteric surprises occasionally pop-up as well. Also, there is a definite feel of urgency and melancholy in a lot of these songs, which serves to tone down the Latin percussion to a suitably non-manic pace.

The definite stand-out piece on the album is Quim Manuel’s “Eme Lelu,” one of the rare times horns make an appearance. The cool brass parts are just gravy though, as the song’s real charm lies in its mesmerizing, sinuous rhythm. I also loved the tensely repetitive “Mecongo Mi Chiquita,” by Ferraro Do Nascimento. There’s quite a bit of other strong material here too—nothing that quite floored me, but the hit-to-miss ratio is quite a bit better than it has been on the last few Analog Africa comps. 

I think the probable cause is that a lot of these musicians have a solid understanding of understatement and nuance, which is greatly appreciated, as the more hyperactive strains of Latin-African hybrids tend to grate on me. As do most jubilantly happy, major key songs, which is why I was very surprised to find that the man behind the jaunty “Uma Amiga” (David Zé) was murdered in a wave of repression that followed a failed coup (along with several other influential musicians). In fact, most of his music is impossible to find even now because people were so frightened to be caught with it during that dark period. Sometimes, even seemingly innocuous music holds morbid surprises, I guess.

Obviously, the music is the main draw here, but I have definitely fallen completely in love with Analog Africa’s packaging: each new album is like the next chapter in the unfolding autobiography of a passionate and compelling eccentric. There are lots of people out there scavenging the world for great lost music and many of them do an excellent job providing colorful or informative context and liner notes, but only Redjeb makes a point of also explaining exactly why he is excited about each project, recounting the absurd lengths he went to to make it happen, and including as many interviews with the people involved as possible. 

I get the feeling that each new release is the most important thing in the world to Redjeb, not just “the next album.” For Angola Soundtracks, he even postponed going to the hospital while seriously ill just because people kept stopping by to sell him records; I’m sure someday I will probably read about him braving an alligator attack or navigating a minefield or something just to interview some guy that played maracas on a 45 he likes. Samy is truly the music nerd’s music nerd, as it is impossible to remain unmoved by his enthusiasm.

Listen here.

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“Panama! 3- Calypso Panameño, Guajira Jazz & Cumbia Tipica on the Isthmus 1960-75” (Soundway, 2012)

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This is allegedly the swansong for Soundway’s excellent Panama! series—an unexpected choice, given that this rich vein of material doesn’t show the slightest sign of being exhausted (perhaps the compilers just need some time away from the heat and the mosquitoes).  Though the focus has shifted away from funk this time, this third volume remains every bit as exuberant, smoldering, absurd, and fun as its predecessors.

One of the most endearing aspect about the Panama! compilations are Roberto Gyemant’s lively and amusing liner notes, which contain none of the academic recounting of facts common with similar albums.  Instead, they offer colorful mixture of enthusiasm and anecdote that allows listeners to share (in some small part, at least) the thrill of discovery.  For example, a local character named Tommy is responsible for introducing Gyemant to several of the best songs that he heard during his stay in Colón.  

Tommy’s shack is apparently an essential stop for music afficionados, as he has a deep love of vintage soul and Jamaican music, which he constantly blares from two large speakers set up outside. Amusingly, however, Tommy does not have a correspondingly deep love of vinyl, so he rips whatever he wants, digitally removes the crackle, and throws the record in the trash (a personality quirk likely to drive musicologists to tears or paroxysms).  The eerie crooning of the ukulele-based “Masters are Gone” was one such find, sending Roberto on a desperate search to track down the actual record somewhere.  Thankfully, he was successful, as it’s a great song.

Naturally, a number of the best artists featured on the earlier compilations appear again.  Lord Cobra again nearly steals the show with his dark and melancholy strain of calypso (“Colón Colón”), but there are a number of other great calypsos included as well- most notably Black Czar’s ridiculous story-song “Bamboo Dance,” in which our hapless narrator is seduced by an older woman at a dance.  Papi Brandao’s sizzling take on the standard “Bilongo” is another clear highlight, but the whole album is teeming with great moments covering a number of stylistic strains (the big band numbers from the ‘60s are particularly strong).  There are some unexpected and odd surprises thrown in too, such as Little Francisco Greaves’ distinctly un-Latin “Moving-Grooving,” which features some infectiously raucous James Brown-isms.

I deeply regretted my lack of Spanish fluency at several points during the album.  I am certain that I am missing out on a great deal of clever wordplay and saucy double-entendres strewn all over the many calypsos, though many of the artists helpfully bounce effortlessly back between English and Spanish (with some occasional other surprise languages thrown in too). Also, one of the most eccentric story songs on the album (“Combo Pa’ La Tineda”) probably loses a lot in its summarized translation.  Fortunately, passion and charisma go a long way towards transcending language barriers and there is no shortage of either on Panama! 3.  This is a great album.  I hope Roberto and his co-compilers take on another project together soon, as they have a definite genius for finding great lost music and presenting it as a raw and sensuous party.

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“Cartagena! Curro Fuentes & The Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962-72” (Soundway, 2011)

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The late Curro Fuentes was quite a fascinating guy. The youngest brother of the Fuentes musical dynasty that dominated Colombian music for four decades, he stayed behind on the coast and started his own studio when Discos Fuentes relocated to the city of Medellin (he found highland food to be “insipid”anyway). Combining some of Colombia’s biggest jazzmen with the most exciting young musicians culled from Cartegena’s many red-light district casinos, brothels, and strip clubs, he produced a slew of scorching, sexed-up big band records in the ’60s. Cartagena! assembles many of them, but the high level of quality here makes me think that the vault is far from empty. I sincerely hope there will be a sequel.

Cartagena! is a sequel of sorts to 2007’s Columbia!, which covered the output of Discos Fuentes (the label run by Curro’s brothers Antonio and Rafael) around roughly the same period. Despite Discos Fuentes’ huge success, Curro always chose to remain separate, starting off with with his own Discos Curros imprint before eventually teaming up with Phillips. In a way, Curro’s studio was kind of a Colombian analog to Factory Records, as it was very devoted to Cartagena’s local music scene and there was a lot of overlap between bands, as many musicians that led their own bands happily lended their talents to other ensembles. Consequently, Curro’s productions drew from a pretty unparalleled talent pool. Equally important is the fact that Fuentes had very strong opinions about what sounded good and wasn’t at all shy about sharing them, replacing percussionists and pianists himself if they couldn’t get a track just right. Also, he was one of the first cumbia producers to make heavy use of electric bass, which he liked quite loud.

The eclectic array of performers that Fuentes drew together resulted in some interesting cross-pollinations between Latin music genres, which goes a long way towards explaining why this music is so spectacular. The young musicians from Cartagena’s clubs made damn sure that the rhythms were raucous and propulsive, while their more established counterparts ensured that the arrangements were skillful and inventive. Despite the disparate backgrounds and the high level of musicianship, everyone could agree upon the very populist objective of heating up dancefloors. As such, this music was very focused on appealingly accessible elements like wild percussion, sultry grooves, and memorable hooks, which is quite different than where American jazz was headed around the same time.

Of all the artists, I was most impressed by saxophonist/bandleader Lucho Bermudez, who is the sole returnee from Colombia! (Soundway sure loves exclamation points). Bermudez’s two pieces are the most perfect synthesis of all of the great stuff happening on this album: fluid solos, driving (but not hyperactive) grooves, virtuosic percussion, infectious enthusiasm, quirkiness, character, and lots of vocal whoops and yelps (which are very important to me). He is not the sole stand-out by any means, though, as I was similarly taken with the songs by several other bands—particularly that of Lucho’s chief rival, Alex Acosta.

Primary compiler Roberto Guymant contributes some alternately informative and amusingly hyperbole-filled liner notes, the latter of which I found extremely charming (“The first time I heard this track, my brain immediately melted out my ears and dribbled down my shirt.”). Even though I don’t quite agree that Crescensio Camacho’s trumpets are apocalyptic or that Los Seven Del Swing embody what Black Sabbath would have sounded like if they’d been raised on the Colombia coast, his enthusiasm is pretty contagious. 

Also, he clearly knows what he is talking about both musically and historically, which is not easy when there are so many regional scenes and similar-sounding genres (to my non-Colombian ears) combining and mutating. To give one example, I learned that the upper classes were scandalized when jazz and cumbia were first combined in the 1940s because it made young Colombians “dance like blacks.” Fortunately, the young people had a lot more influence on where their culture was headed than the wealthy, reactionary types. Of course, as much as I love colorful anecdotes and uncomfortable cultural factoids, the most important thing of all is quality of the music and Roberto and his co-curators simply have great taste. A few pieces are certainly too frenzied or locked-groove-sounding for my taste, but they are largely outnumbered by excellent ones. This is a thoroughly fun and vibrant album.

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“Pakistan: Folk and Pop Instrumentals 1966-1976” (Sublime Frequencies, 2011)

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This album is very deceptively packaged and presented, but in the best way possible: the tame cover art and the word “folk” did nothing at all to prepare me for the extremely fun and quirky pseudo-surf gems within. Of course, many of these pieces were originally folk songs, but they have been so jazzed-up with kitschy organs and twangy, tremelo-happy guitars as to make that term a wildly misleading understatement. Curator Stuart Ellis has assembled an improbable monster of a compilation.

Ellis unknowingly started working on this album in 2005, when he begun making mix CDs (and then box sets) of obscure world music for himself and his friends. Gradually, he became more and more interested in how rock music manifested itself in non-western cultures. Also, his record scavenging and trading began bringing him in contact with like-minded people scattered across the world. As a result, the project quickly blossomed into the excellent blog Radiodiffusion Internationaal and eventually led to the curation of 2008’s Bollywood Steel Guitar compilation on Sublime Frequencies. Although Ellis’s blog isn’t especially fixated on Pakistan (his tastes are pretty wide-ranging), the period covered here is pretty fascinating, largely undocumented, and quite short-lived: the Pakistani’s embraced rock in a big way, but the recorded evidence of that phase does not sound much like any American or British rock that was happening (except for maybe the Ventures or The Shadows). It is easy to see why he chose it for a subject.

The handful of artists collected on this double album are an eclectic bunch, ranging from respected film composers to largely forgotten bands that only managed to release one single. Or sometimes even less, as The Bugs just got the B-side of the Do Raha soundtrack single and The Bluebirds’ sole recorded output is just a few pieces on a film music compilation. The material itself is no less varied, as the only way to get a record released at the time was to either cover a traditional song with rock instrumentation (possibly with some electric sitar thrown in) or to contribute to a film soundtrack.

Within those unusual confines, however, these young musicians went in some unexpected and inspired directions. For example, The Panthers spice up the traditional “Bhairvi” with swooning, woozy guitars, while The Bugs pump up the thumping Do Raha theme with enthusiastic electric sitar and a catchy accordion motif. My favorite piece is probably the noir-ish/spy movie-sounding “Aay Jays Theme,” but this is a surprisingly good album from start to finish. I suspect a lot of that has to do with the fact that this whole project has been organically unfolding for so long that throwing together two albums of killer Pakistani rock for a compilation was no problem at all for Ellis. 

As a whole, I prefer the more “garage rock” interpretations to the more psych-inspired ones or those that just sound like folk songs played on the wrong instruments, but I never find myself skipping anything when I put this album on—Stuart’s judgment is unerring. In fact, I find that I like a lot of these pieces much more than I like the Western bands that influenced them.

Of course, the Pakistan captured here is quite a different place from Pakistan now, as long hair, rock music, wild nightlife, and drugs were pretty damn rampant during that country’s brief cultural explosion. Unfortunately, all good things must end and that momentum came to an abrupt end when a 1977 coup resulted in the institution of a markedly less rockin’ and hashish-friendly Islamic state, causing many of the key musicians in the scene to move to North America and the UK. Notably, Ellis has actually managed to contact some of them over the years and was often greeted with bewildered questions like “Why do you like this stuff?” or “Why do you care?” That, of course, is the hallmark of any truly great Sublime Frequencies compilation: finding great music so ephemeral and forgotten that even the musicians themselves are left baffled and surprised.

Listen here.

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“The Sound of Siam: Leftfield Luk Thung, Jazz and Molam from Thailand 1964-1975” (Soundway, 2010)

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As anyone who picked up Siamese Soul or Electric Cambodia last year will probably attest, there was some absolutely amazing music being made in Southeast Asia in the ’60s and ’70s, so I was pretty thrilled when I heard Soundway was throwing their hat in the Thai pop ring. As expected, The Sound of Siam is a pretty spectacular album, expertly balancing soulful, funky greatness with exuberant, kitschy fun and unearthing some incredibly obscure artists in the process.

The Sound of Siam is the first Soundway collection to involve curator Chris Menist, who has previously done some work for Soul Jazz and compiled a very interesting sounding collection of weird Pakistani film music for Finders Keepers. Menist is an English percussionist/music journalist currently living in Bangkok, which makes him one of few people uniquely suited for this endeavor. 

Nevertheless, assembling a compilation of decades-old Thai music would be a Herculean undertaking for anyone (even without a language barrier) and one that requires complete immersion, patience, and a hell of a lot of crate-digging. At the time of many of these recordings, recording studios, records, and record players were all quite uncommon in Thailand, so releases were often self-distributed and went largely to collectors and folks like party DJs until cassettes ultimately took hold. 

Things are further complicated by the fact that most releases were only 45s and that cover art could sometimes be quite misleading regarding an album’s actual participants. Also, vintage music is not exactly revered or coveted in Thai culture. Fortunately, many of the old record shops from the period are still around and still have the same owners and the same dusty stock, so a suitably intrepid person can still find some gems with enough persistence (provided they don’t have allergies).

The biggest revelation here is Chaweewan Dumnern, who contributes three songs, all of which are excellent. My favorite is “Lam Toey Chaweewan,” in which she plays the role of a mistress telling her lover that she’ll wait for him to leave his family. Of her three pieces, that one has the sultriest groove, but her vocals are thoroughly gripping and oozing with emotion at all times. Her inclusion is quite a coup for Miles Cleret and Menist, as I have not seen her work on any other compilations and I had an extremely hard time even finding any of her Thai releases (hint: her name also can be spelled “Chawiwan Damnern”). 

Another remarkable piece is The Petch Phin Thong Band’s instrumental “Soul Lam Plearn,” which blasts into a completely raucous, utterly infectious, and triumphantly ridiculous rave-up after a deceptively noodling lute intro. I was also quite a fan of Onuma Singsiri’s sassy vocals on the melodramatic “Mae Kha Som Tam,” which uses a papaya-based salad as a metaphor for urban loneliness. However, there are quite a few other instantly likable songs here as well, those just happen to be the upper tier to my ears. There is very little weak material or filler.

Aside from the scattering of truly great songs and characteristically informative liner notes, The Sound of Siam is also pretty exceptional for its many bizarre and unintentionally comic touches. For example, the artists include both former rickshaw drivers and monks, “Ding Dong Ding” was originally on the soundtrack of an Italian “caveman sex comedy,” and Plearn Promdan contributes a song about drunken monkeys and weed-smoking elephants. 

The music itself can be equally absurd, as Dao Bandon’s “May Jom Ka Lon” kicks off with circus-style brass band music and many other songs feature incongruous ripped-off classic rock riffs (even the good ones). Fortunately, quality still reigns, so all of amusing background information, silly morality tales, and misguided musical flourishes only serve to imbue the album with an enormous amount of character and fun. This is my favorite compilation of the year.

Listen here.

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“Saigon Rock & Soul: Vietnamese Classic Tracks 1968-1974” (Sublime Frequencies, 2010)

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In characteristic Sublime Frequencies fashion, Mark Gergis’ latest compilation documents a truly unique and flourishing scene that very few people even knew existed. It is hard to think of many positive things that came out of the Vietnam War but the free exchange of music and equipment between American soldiers and Saigon’s hipper young musicians certainly resulted in some raucous and inventive music that could not have otherwise existed. Punk would have had no reason to happen if rock music had been this wild in the Western world in the mid-’70s.

This is the sort of album that could only have come out on Sublime Frequencies for many reasons, but the main one is that compiling such a retrospective seemed like such a complicated and near-hopeless task: these songs were essentially wiped from the earth after Saigon fell to the Viet Cong in 1975. Some musicians were tipped-off by friends and were able to flee the country to continue their careers as nomadic rock n’ roll refugees, but the ones that stayed behind were forced to destroy any evidence of Western culture to avoid being dispatched to reform camps.

Further complicating the endeavor was the fact that Southeast Asian cultures have a tendency to view pop music as a disposable and very of-the-moment thing. Even if this music had remained available, most Vietnamese music fans wouldn’t have cared or noticed. They are interested in what is happening now, not forty years ago (“fetishism of the old is left to those rare creatures obsessed enough to take on the task”). 

As if that wasn’t enough, any new interpretations are viewed as supplanting the original versions, making Internet searches an exasperating process. Consequently, original recordings from that short-lived era are staggeringly difficult to come by in 2010, even without a language barrier standing in the way. Fortunately, Gergis was aided in his efforts by a California record collector named Rick Foust who had presciently snapped up a lot of these recordings when they were available in Vietnamese-owned shops in the ’80s.

Gergis definitely tried to give a broad overview of the scene, which necessarily means that listeners will probably not fall in love with every single song. On the flip side, however, it is hard to imagine anyone who loves music not being floored by at least one or two pieces here. I personally had a hard time embracing some of the more high-pitched vocal performances, like the one in the CBC Band’s opening “Tình Yêu Tuyệt Vời (The Greatest Love).” That said, the band themselves rip shit up quite impressively (the liner notes describe them (quite rightly) as “teenage acid rock of the highest order”). 

Admittedly, acid rock is generally not a favorite genre of mine, but these teens were smart enough to replace its more plodding and self-indulgent aspects with infectious youthful exuberance and a rumbling, funky low-end. It is damn near impossible not to love a band that is so obviously intent on unleashing a raucously hell-raising good time. Sadly, even though Rolling Stone once proclaimed them to be “The Best Band in the Orient,” they only ever managed to record two songs (for the soundtrack to a comedy, no less). In keeping with that theme, the band (now living in Texas) were absolutely stunned that Gergis unearthed those songs, as even they themselves hadn’t heard them in nearly four decades.

The most essential piece on the album, however, is probably Connie Kim’s incendiary “Anh Đâu Em Đó [Where You Are, I’ll Be There],” which features one of the absolute best rhythm sections that I have ever heard. The groove is so perfect that the rest of the band could have been playing literally anything and it wouldn’t matter, but everything else is great too: wild organ solos, smoky saxophones, fuzzed out guitars, and cool sultry vocals. I imagine that it must have been a bit disorienting for some G.I.s to come back home and hear the comparatively neutered rock being played on radios in the US after experiencing such funky, frenzied abandon abroad. That said, there are a number of other stunning pieces strewn throughout the album that take wildly different stylistic paths, such as Hoàng Oanh’s languidly melancholy “Ngày Sau Sẽ Ra Sao,” the mutant Motown girl-group pop of Thai Thanh, and Thanh Lan’s suavely cosmopolitan “Hoài Thu [Autumn Memory].” 

As with just about all Sublime Frequencies releases, the sound quality is quite raw. Fortunately, that actually works quite effectively in this case, as this music deserves to be heard as it was experienced in those steamy Saigon clubs forty years ago: gritty and unfiltered. Most of these artists rely heavily on sinuously funky bass lines and overdriven and wah-wah’ed guitars, both of which only sound more visceral with increased volume and in-the-red recording quality.

While I am usually not a fan of foreign pastiches of American rock in general, the sheer enthusiasm and passion of these musicians managed to burn through my misgivings beautifully and instantly. Saigon Rock & Soul captures a singular cultural nexus: the thrill of discovering rock and roll colliding with the urgency of living in the midst of a war zone. This is some of the most thrillingly alive music that will be released this year (and one impressive feat of musicology to boot).

Listen here.

Note: Two tracks were misidentified on the original release. On track B4, Hoàng Oanh and the song “Ngày Sau Sẽ Ra Sao” were misidentified as Lệ Thu and the song “Sao Biển.” On track C3, Connie Kim and the song “Anh Đâu Em Đó” were misidentified as Băng Châu (misspelled as Bang Chan) and the song “Những Đóm Mắt Hoả Châu.”

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“Afro-Beat Airways: West African Shock Waves (Ghana & Togo 1972-1978)” (Analog Africa, 2010)

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The origins of this compilation read like the plot to an quirky indie comedy: a German musicologist misplaces his passport, loses his luggage, misses his flight, and winds up taking a completely different flight. When he arrives at his revised destination, he spends some time with a compelling eccentric, some unexpected things happen, and the experience changes the course of his life. The eccentric character in this instance was Dick Essilfe-Bonzie, a producer for Ghana’s influential indie label Essiebons, and reluctant caretaker of a mountain of forgotten recordings that Polygram never bothered to collect when they took over.

It is both fascinating and alarming how much of a role serendipity and chance play in musicology sometimes. Altered flight destination aside, curator Samy Ben Redjeb was not planning to embark upon a Ghana compilation at all when Essilfe-Bonzie presented him with a box of recently digitized recordings that he was thinking of emerging from retirement to release himself. 

Soon after, Redjeb learned that the reissue project wasn’t going to happen after all (“things are complicated”) and that Dick had several huge boxes of doomed master tapes sitting on his veranda getting rained on. Given that: 1.) he had no choice but to save the tapes, and 2.) he already had heard quite a bit of great of great music from Essilfe-Bonzie’s prematurely aborted digitizing project, it became a forgone conclusion that Samy needed to shelve his Togo and Benin projects and plunge into the sudden windfall of Ghana-iana. I am curious to see how many more albums emerge from this treasure trove, as only 12 of the songs included on Afro-Beat Airways were actually taken from Dick’s archive.

For the most part, the focus of the album is placed quite squarely on funky, organ-based Afro-Beat. To his credit, Redjeb avoids the unnecessarily epic song lengths and prolonged, self-indulgent solos that have historically torpedoed many of my Afro-Beat listening experiences. In fact, most of the songs are a punchy four minutes or under, except for the cases where they are excellent enough to warrant departing from that formula. 

If it weren’t for the inclusion of a brief and infectiously propulsive piece by De Frank Professionals, song length would actually be directly proportional to song quality, as all of my other favorites tend to go on for a while. In particular, the K. Frimpong and Ebo Taylor pieces are pretty stellar. Notably, two of those were among the tapes liberated from the boxes sitting outside Essilfe-Bonzie’s house, narrowly avoiding oblivion to become compilation highlights. I was also quite fond of African Brothers Band’s “Ngyegye No So,” which features a charming mid-song spoken breakdown courtesy of the very charismatic Nana Ampedu (“Well well well…my people, are you okay?”). I’m a sucker for those.

In short, Afro-Beat Airways is a very solid and likable compilation. While there isn’t a single song that stands out as a flat-out masterpiece (aside from maybe Ebo Taylor’s sinuously funky “Come Along”), nothing stands out as disappointing either. That is no small feat, as Ghana (like Nigeria) has been anthologized to death in recent years. Unearthing unheard gems from such a vast and complicated trove of available material is a never-ending (and daunting) sifting process and Redjeb has done a great job of it. I was particularly excited about the K. Frimpong piece, which I didn’t have yet (and presumably never would have heard without Redjeb’s intervention). I was equally thrilled to learn from the liner notes that Vis á Vis were his studio backing band, thus providing me with my next internet scavenging target.

Obviously, a lot of great African music is turning up on mp3 blogs like Awesome Tapes From Africa, but having a knowledgeable guy like Samy around to ferret out all the best stuff and write about it is pretty wonderful and indispensable. Not many people have the resources or patience to try to chase down dozens of long-retired obscure musicians in foreign countries, so a lot of the pictures, anecdotes, and line-up details included here are pretty unique and invaluable. The album itself is certainly enjoyable, but the accompanying interviews and biographical information are even better.

Listen here.

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“Nigeria Special Volume 2: Modern Highlife, Afro Sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-6” (Soundway, 2010)

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This is purportedly the final album in Soundway’s excellent Nigeria Special series (a fact that causes me no small amount of pain), but at least it is concluding in fine form. While some of the previous albums may have hit higher highs, the breezy, laid-back songs collected here might be the most consistently strong and listenable batch yet (though without entirely forgoing eccentricity). This will likely be the soundtrack for my summer.

It is difficult to believe that most of the tracks compiled here have been out of print for over three decades, as this album is packed with memorable melodies and lazily infectious grooves from the very beginning. The ridiculously titled “Psychedelic Baby” kicks the album off perfectly with a languorous rhythm, sultry horns, and a pleasingly bittersweet chorus, setting a standard of excellence that does not waver until the album ends. 

Notably, “Psychedelic Baby” features one of my favorite soul music tropes: a spoken word monologue/confessional addressing a possibly fictitious woman (a move that only becomes more charming with the addition of heavily-accented, difficult-to-understand English). Sadly, none of the other 18 artists included here takes some time to break it down for the ladies, but they manage to hold my attention pretty well anyway. On a related note, I am also a huge fan of absurdly grandiose and unwieldy band names, an appetite that this album satisfies admirably (“Commander In Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe & His Nigerian Sound Makers” being my favorite, despite stiff competition).

There is no noticeably weak or even average material here, but there are a number of stellar tracks strewn throughout the album that stand out from the rest. Two of the best are by so-called “progressive” bands: Tunji Oyelana & The Benders and The Nkengas. In this case, however, that term has no relation to its oft-unfortunate Western connotations—instead, both bands are merely more ingenious and resourceful than their peers. Oyelana’s “Iwo Ko La Dami” features jazzy sax leads and a minimalist guitar vamp that are similar to many of the other acts from that era, but bolsters them with incredibly tight, funky, and virtuosic drumming. As for The Nkengas, their “Anyi Bundi Igbo” boasts a brilliantly space-riddled and compartmentalized production that sounds like it was filtered through Martin Hannett.

Curator Miles Claret seems to have deliberately opted for more uniformly relaxed and spacious feel with this album, eschewing the more aggressively funk-influenced and heavy-handed strains of ‘70s Nigerian music for a strong emphasis on Highlife. Nevertheless, he still snuck in some moments of oddball experimentalism. For example, “Totobiroko” is based on a hypnotically repeating bass pattern and a weirdly erratic xylophone motif, but manages to maintain an extremely cool tribal groove in the process.  

The album’s closer (by Joy Nwoso and Dan Satch) is stranger still, as it uses an endlessly repeating two-note bass line and languid brass hook to hold together a lurching beat and bizarrely operatic female vocals. Both tracks are certainly disorienting and outré when heard alone, but they are sequenced in such a way as to fit quite seamlessly with the less boldly ambitious surrounding material. Also, a great beat goes a long way towards making indulgent weirdness palatable.

Nigeria Special Volume 2 is an excellent place to start for anyone curious about African music. While the ‘70s birthed a lot of brilliant and vital music in countries like Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Senegal, and Lagos, that era was also characterized by rampant clutter, over-enthusiasm, structurelessness, and bloated song-lengths. Claret is much better at sifting through it all than most, resulting in an album packed with short, hook-filled songs and killer rhythms, but without sacrificing rawness or immediacy. This is, simply put, great music. I am sad to see this series end (especially so soon after the Panama! swansong), but I am sure Miles and Soundway have something else equally compelling looming on the horizon. 

(The triple LP version of this album features three extra songs not covered here)

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“Nigeria Afrobeat Special: The New Explosive Sound in 1970’s Nigeria” (Soundway, 2010)

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The late Fela Kuti was such a larger-than-life cultural supernova that it is very easy to forget that a host of other excellent Afrobeat bands spawned in his wake. Of course, the comparative obscurity cloaking the rest of that scene was also not helped by the fact that virtually none of Nigeria’s other hot bands from that period ever had their albums released outside of their native country (or even reissued once the boom had ended). On this, the fourth installment of Soundway’s Nigeria Special series, indefatigable curator Miles Claret sets out to redress that injustice (and assemble another great album in the process).

Of course, a completely Fela-free Afrobeat compilation would be both impossible and undesirable, so this album appropriately kicks off with the single version of his “Who’re You?” from 1971. While a different incarnation appears on Fela’s London Scene, this is the first ever reissue of the original 45 version. It is far from my favorite Fela track, but it is a rare and somewhat seminal one and has the added important distinction of being under nine minutes long. That relative brevity was an early casualty in Kuti’s career, as his brilliance was always tempered by a tendency towards wildly bloated, self-indulgent vamps that were often two (or even three) times as long.

Thankfully, none of the artists included embraced that trait (aside from perhaps Eric Showboy Akaeze). That said, tightly structured songs were clearly still pretty anathema to the whole Afrobeat aesthetic—all of the tracks here are essentially built upon a single complex, poly-rhythmic groove with intermittent soloing. The vocals (while spirited) are largely inconsequential to the success of the songs, as it is the groove that is king.  From this perspective, the album’s clear highlight is “Mind Your Business” by Saxon Lee and The Shadows International, who exhibit a cool restraint lacking in many of their peers. The components of the song are pretty skeletal, but the simple organ figure and minimal beat flow beautifully and insistently. Lee and his band get just about everything else right too, as the organ and brass solos are great throughout. The following track (by Bongos Ikwue and The Groovies) is also pretty spectacular, as its funky guitars and exuberant lurching drums provide an infectious bed for the song’s catchy call-and-response vocals. The percussion gets quite wild and adventurous at times too. 

Of course, no compilation is flawless and Nigeria Afrobeat Special is no exception. There are a handful of songs that are over-cluttered or a bit heavy-handed with the drums and brass arrangements, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Aside from the two standouts mentioned above (which occur early on), the album only grows stronger as it progresses (bolstered by excellent work by Segun Bucknor’s Revolution and Fela’s chief rival, Orlando Julius). 

The greatest successes on this compilation tend to be the bands that realized that there was no way to better Fela (and his inimitable drummer Tony Allen) at their own game and that their best bet was to bring something new to the table. That “something new” varies a lot here, as these bands all strove to find ingenious solutions to the same problem. Consequently, the Afrobeat formula is twisted in many interesting ways here, ranging from “more song-like” to “swaggeringly jazzy” to simply “just more laid back.” That variety certainly enhances the album’s listenability. Nigeria Afrobeat Special succeeds admirably in its objective of providing a much-needed overview of an especially vibrant and fertile stage in African music evolution, but it is (equally importantly) a strong album scattered with a handful of should-be classics.  

(Note: This album is also available as a triple-LP, featuring five bonus tracks not covered here)

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