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World Psychedelic Classics 3 |
| Love's A Real Thing: The Funky, Fuzzy Sounds |
| Luaka Bop | 2005 | Album |
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If this compilation provides any cultural thesis on its first listen, it is that the Western portion of the African continent is a gathering place for the world's musical influences. The artists given forum here (most bearing names the average American listener would puzzle at the identification or the very pronunciation) bring together strongly Latin, Carribean, and European traditional forms, and give them a once over in a smooth, funk driven Afro-beat mix. The songs are hybrids of funk and blues ("Minsato Le, Mi Dayihome"), British invasion ("Love's a Real Thing") and twisted, island flavors ("Ceddo End Title").
On repeated listens the one realizes that the sheer variety contained on this record is staggering. There are calls to pop artists from the likes of Senegal's Youssou N'Dour to the pride of the southern states, James Brown. Producers David Byrne (whose Luka Bop label is a veritable hot bed for neglected nuggets of genius) and Yale Evelev have identified a dozen eclectic artists in the interest of giving the blinded west, a vivid laboratory in which to examine a lost world. The aim here isn't to bring down one style, or one country, but to relish in the gathering of many.
My quarrel, and one I had to search long and hard for on the solid, twelve track compilation, is that its title is misleading. It is, as this review has detailed, funky and fuzzy, but I hasten to call it anything like an astute collection of psychadelic rock -- at least not in the western terms of Syd Barrett, Frank Zappa or the Residents. Influences from these artists can he heard in various pieces here - sometimes giving this record the feeling of being at the crossroads of some cultural vortex - they're just not the most predominant.
The artists compiled in Love's A Real Thing are brimming with a peculiar energy, and exhibit an enthusiasm for their soulful pop music that should make the rest of the world envious. These are not the protest, politically driven wails of Fela Kuti or Bob Marley. For the most part, they are rhythm driven love songs. And even then - even if they are just love songs, they prove there is nothing sleepy in West Africa. All is abuzz like a honey bee. |
| Erick Mertz |
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