SOMANTI (vinyl)

Description

VODOU MYSTIC ENERGY MEETS ELECTRO.Chouk Bwa's music is entirely acoustic: it's the sound of wood, skin, metal, horn, and the human voice singing in Haitian Creole. This music contains strong cultural memories and rhythms, with its invocations of ancestral lands – the African kingdoms of Oyo, Kongo, and Dahomey – and the thunderous proclamations of the transcontinental vodou spirits of Legba, Ogou, and Inan. There is joy in the songs, in their beautiful relaxed harmony and catchy rhythms, but there is also a darker side, an empathetic rage, testifying to injustice and pleading on behalf of the world's poor.The addition of The Ångstromers changes nothing, but together, they create a truly unique style. Cultures and their music are carefully combined. The electronics are analog and vintage. No metronome, no sequencers, nothing that restricts the humanity of the music for the sake of rigidity and precision: this collaboration cannot be hampered by the tyranny of computers. These rhythms, textures, and tempos ripple like liquid, an effect only possible when each musician reacts to the others around them. While the Haitian and Belgian musicians are connected, the synthetic is directly linked to the organic, creating a seamless, percussive, electro-acoustic, and transcultural surge. Musicians, instruments, electronics, audience, spirits: all come together as one on 'Somanti'." THE HEART SPEEDS UP WITH THE HAITIAN BAND CHOUK BWA..... " --- TÉLÉRAMA --- ." A powerful, gentle, haunting, and devilishly effective creation that sublimates the vodou worlds, and gives a universal dimension to the trance of Haitian drums." --- RFI ---." The rootsy and militant invocations exude the rage of former slaves and the infinite blues of a people victim of earthquakes and corruption." --- TÉLÉRAMA ---.