AFRICAN ELECTRONIC MUSIC 1975-1982 (vinyl)

Description

African pioneer of electronic music in the 70s, Francis Bebey offers us generous and humorous songs with handcrafted synthesizers and drum machines. An unprecedented musical escape with hints of avant-garde! Cameroonian musician Francis Bebey is a rare specimen. He began his musical career by composing African pieces for classical guitar. He gave recitals while pursuing a career as a journalist, then as an international civil servant. The same creative impulse led him to also write pop songs, some of which, highly successful in Africa and the French-speaking world, are sung adaptations of novels he wrote. But few people know that, in the 70s, Francis Bebey ventured into electronic music. The first organs, electronic keyboards, and drum machines gave him the unprecedented opportunity to become the exhaustive conductor of his compositions. Thanks to the re-recording technique (recording several juxtaposed tracks on the same tape), he delightfully opened a new page in his musical history and produced several albums ("Savannah Georgia", "New Track", "Haiti") which are as rare for their creative explorations as for their vinyl pressing. The period was rich because the field of possibilities was limitless, and the instruments were new and astonishing. Unheard-of sounds, in the literal sense of the term, would then appear on planet Bebey. "The rhythmic and melodic form tinkered with on the synth by this African pioneer of traditional-electro blends: delicate, full of softness, inventive... and astonishingly modern" Télérama