African Virtuoses.nfo
Artist : African Virtuoses
Album : The Classic Guinean Guitar Group
Source : flac
Year : 1983
Genre : World
Encoder : dbpoweramp
Codec : LAME 3.98
Bitrate : VBR ~168K/s 44100Hz Joint Stereo
ID3-Tag : ID3v2.3
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http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10617-the-classic-guinean-guitar-group/
African Virtuoses
The Classic Guinean Guitar Group
Sterns Africa; 2007
By Mike Powell; October 10, 2007
After rushes on gnarly West African music over the past
year-- particularly records by Saharan trance bands Tartit,
Etran Finatawa, and the fierce Tinariwen-- the focus is
sliding down the coast's bulb. This comp of lyric acoustic
guitar work from the Diabate family is the third Guinean
release Sterns Africa has offered this year, alongside a
reissue of a Bembeya Jazz Ensemble retrospective and a
singles collection from the Guinean state-run label
Syliphone. In 1958, France had passed around a referendum to
their colonies for a new constitution; Guinea declined to
any baby country-- especially one nominally under
sponsoring dance bands to try to foster a sense of cultural
unity. (The Diabate brothers' father, Sidiki, was the head
So, strange then that half of this disc was recorded in 1983
in neighboring Ivory Coast, whose capital, Abidjan, turned
into destination for musicians after the economy sunk and
good, of course). But African musicians have always held a
dignified cool about expressing their angst-- even iconic
hothead Fela sounded unbothered in his prime, though Lagos
was probably a lot more dangerous and dirty than England in
the 1970s, where brats on the dole found plenty to complain
about.
Not to say that it's protest music, because it's not. If
anything, the central charm here is how damn unhurried and
relaxed the Diabates sound. Even when they ornament-- and
the music is so harmonically and rhythmically simple that
it's almost all ornament-- it's more amble than flash; on
the closing "Solo Virtuose", Papa Diabate has about
seventeen minutes all to himself, so he spreads out,
the sake of mutual hypnosis.
Much of Syliphone's dance material has a Latin inflection,
and even though the Diabates are distinct in their more
lyric, acoustic sound, they offer fusions like "Dembati
Galant", which features kora-- an African harp-- spilling
out over ecstatic flamenco whirls. I'm not sure what kind of
imperialistic impressions were at work here, but the notes
suggest a popularity of Cuban music at the time, something
I'd associate more closely with Congo and the DRC, where
musicians formed their own take on rumba. Whatever and
whyever it is, it's probably best not to think about it too
much, because reasonable, two-chord approximations of
infinity's bliss are pretty hard to find, and they fumble
toward it at least a couple times.
The Diabates were from Guinea, but everyone knows what a
porch feels like. Borders aside, there's at least a few
elegant, universal approaches to simple alchemy, and African
Virtuoses-- a bunch of guys with acoustic guitars-- can
safely count themselves as one.
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Track Listing
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1. Nanibali ( 6:00)
2. Kankan Diarabi ( 6:02)
3. Wouloukoro ( 4:30)
4. Hafia ( 4:52)
5. Dembati Galant ( 5:39)
6. Madama Nana ( 4:18)
7. Toubaka ( 4:46)
8. N'fa ( 6:38)
9. Ballade Sur La Lagune ( 5:07)
10. Solo Virtuose (16:53)
Total Playing Time: 64:49 (min:sec)
Total Size : 79.0 MB (82,798,244 bytes)
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