Konono N°1
Congotronics

Now something new, something you have never heard before.

We are now accustomed to musical Anglo-centrism; the scene is mostly dominated by English and American bands, with some exceptions for the Icelanders, Jamaicans, and a few others. We Italians settle for the crumbs. And countries outside our perspective and culture, like Africa and Asia, are used only as a pastime: every now and then a small band is pulled from the magic hat to be granted a bit of success, but it's almost always a sleight of hand; fake traditional singers who are assembled and arranged through the distorting lens of the majors.

The story is different for the Konono N°1, a Congolese collective active for over twenty-five years discovered by the Belgian producer Vincent Kennis. The group is led by Mingiedi, a virtuoso of the likembé (a classic African lamellophone), and it follows the footsteps of traditional orchestras that accompanied rites and religious manifestations, always teetering between the ancestral and the apotropaic.

With the consequent migration of the population from rural areas to urban centers, the Konono had to adapt to new acoustic standards by amplifying in a handcrafted way (with old car magnets and other similar pieces, now destined for scrap) the three likembés (bass, mid, and treble) and adding to the standard percussion others made from industrial and mechanical scraps. This transformation led to a radical shift of their proposal, bringing it closer to an aesthetic more enchanting to our Western ears: their sound began to take shape, increasingly resembling certain industrial rock and extreme and visionary forms of electronics.

Lufuala Ndonga is the track that welcomes us as soon as we start the album: a captivating sound and an exhausting groove accompany us in a primal and engaging dance, an exemplary transgenic piece of electro-trance for the savanna. A humid and warm atmosphere, regular and irresistible percussion guide Masikulo; while Kule Kule rests on an almost minimal architecture.

The album continues along these guidelines, always confusing and stunning, often enriched by the jubilant voices of the musicians: it's overwhelming if you let yourself go to the enormous groove of this music. A glimpse of Africa orgiastic and psychotropic: the most psychedelic Miles Davis combined with a completely novel analog electronic, futurist in its expansion through a sound system equipped with large colonial-era megaphones.

In short, something you have never heard before. Discover it.