AYITI KONGO DUB #2 (vinyl 45T)

Description

Following the 1st edition released earlier this year, Swiss label Bongo Joe announces "Ayiti Kongo Dub EP#2" by Chouk Bwa & The Angströmers. As Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms meet heavyweight dub electronics, the two-part EP has documented the group experimenting with a stripped-down form focused on the trance dimension. Opening with a ceremonial chant and designed to trigger dancefloor delirium, the first track taken from the EP is the high-octane, primal techno of "Zemedo" CHOUK BWA: Founded in 2012 in Gonaïves by Jean Claude "Sambaton" Dorvil, Chouk Bwa (formerly Chouk Bwa Libète) uses traditional drums, iron and bamboo as instruments, as support for the singing. This radical choice sets them apart from most representatives of the Rasin movement. Vodou mysticism underpins the entire repertoire composed by Sambaton. In the course of a song, it is the voice of Haitian peasants in their daily struggle for survival that is expressed, sometimes in the form of scenes from everyday life, sometimes with the impatience of a political harangue. The group invokes in turn the families of Haitian Vodou (Dahomey, Nago, Kongo...), taking care to preserve the very broad diversity of rhythmic and gestural vocabulary associated with them. Custodian of these roots, torn from Africa and then secretly replanted in a new land, Chouk Bwa shares them on stage as if its life depended on it. In September 2016, Chouk Bwa carried out a live experiment with the Brussels electronic adventurer duo The Angstromers. What emerged was a new project, on stage and on record. The two Brussels musicians slip various microphones into and around the drums and voices. Chouk Bwa's strikes and vibrations produce a myriad of signals that slip into the heart of the "vintage" machines. The duo works them live, and translates the invisibility of the spirits into electronic vibrations. Millennia-old trance becomes urban, contemporary. In this process, it is the music of Vodou that leads the way. No computer, no drum machine, would dare to constrain it.