Labels: Ache
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Writing a fair and relevant review of an album which falls so far outside the boundaries of
the middle class white boy emo / hc / indie standards that I have indulged the past years of
my life in, is practically impossible. Yet I will commit a few words to the electronic
medium because I have found this cd to be quite fascinating, and not in a patronising sense.
Anyways, Konono No1 are an African band, and this cd is 7 songs that clock in at 50 minutes
– and it is music that is incessantly rhythmical and spellbinding, summoning up shimmering
grooves with its repetitious instruments, group vocals, dudes blowing whistles and hypnotic
drumming. To someone as shockingly uncoordinated in dancing as I am, its all quite
embarrassing (I lack rhythm so much that I can barely even spell the word) – if I saw them live I would be cowering in the corner whilst all the people
with a sense of rhythm would be laying down the moves and forming some kind of crazy
multi-limbed animal made up of several human beings. I don’t really have any grasp of how
Konono No1 have formed their style, or even come to the attention of a tiny Canadian indie
record label who sends releases to Collective, even though the past few have been
unceremoniously panned. Look, your best bet is to just go and listen to this and see what
you think. Its something that really made me sit up and take notice, although it is not a record
I would find it that easy to listen to all the way through due to my shabby attention span,
and that it does seem a little repetetive coming out of my home speakers, the tracks don’t
vary a great deal – whilst in a live situation I bet it’d be utterly compulsive.
At least check this out. You may be quite surprised, and there is practically zero chance
that it’ll sound that similar to the last record you listened to, unless you already listen
to African music. In which case, maybe you should have written this review instead of me