Various Artists Burkina Faso, Ginger Root Spotlight People
Various Artists
Burkina Faso
(Sublime Frequencies)
The globe-trotting label Sublime Frequencies has proven to be one of the most diversely fascinating labels currently operating, being a sort of more homegrown, rougher, exclusively non-Western-world version of Smithsonian Folkways.
Its recent triple-LP boxed set Burkina Faso (also available as digital downloads) is an absolutely captivating and enlightening collection, taken from label co-founder Hisham Mayet’s field recordings made in the West African nation on three trips from 2013 to 2015.
The first volume features two long tracks featuring a Lobi balafon (xylophone) player with three accompanying performers on hand drum, a clinking hand-held metallic instrument, and a rattling, buzzing plucked string instrument.
The first track spotlights “Cabaret Music” with its relentless stream of xylophone notes that are mirrored by the player’s wordless vocalizations and several different rhythmic trajectories; although the second track is “Funeral Music,” it’s actually surprisingly upbeat and as entrancing as “Cabaret Music.”
Volume 2 branches out into a variety of styles—Mossi, Bissa, Bwaba, Fulani and Samo music—with passionate singing and chanting with insistent, jittery koundé (lute) playing. The volume’s final track hammers out a riff in a duet using a koundé and a lolongo, which is a mouth harp that is the size of an archery bow; with tiny note variations and rhythmic phasing, a simple three-note pattern is transformed into an astoundingly effective slice of minimalism.
Selections on Volume 3 represent the Dioula and also Donso hunters—an animist sect—who use their brisk music to help power-up and provide protection, featuring the Donso ngoni (“hunter’s harp”), a stringed instrument made from a large gourd. Fassobolomba’s stirring “Bougnabagnale” uses call-and-response vocals and whips up a fervor with a burst of acceleration at the end.
This is a remarkable collection and a deep dive, covering a number of styles, song forms and instruments; its unifying threads include an earthy minimalism, a tireless improvisational spirit and the ability to put the listener into a spellbound state through a hypnotic momentum.
Ginger Root
Spotlight People
(Clew)
Huntington Beach, California-based multi-instrumentalist Cameron Lew’s first solo album from 2015, welp., is full of joyously homemade, glowing power-pop that was, in the artist’s words, “influenced heavily on whatever band he was into at that time.”
With that in mind, Lew’s new album Spotlight People, released under the moniker Ginger Root, seems to be under the heavy influence of Stevie Wonder, with a general ‘70s soul-pop vibe with light funk and soft rock elements—perhaps like a less flamboyant yet equally festive low-rent Earth, Wind and Fire crossed with Steely Dan bits.
This writer also offers the theory that Spotlight People was influenced heavily by whatever keyboard Lew was into at that time. And that keyboard happens to be a Nord Electro 2, which specializes in mimicking classic electric pianos and organs, such as the distinctive Hammond B3, down to simulating its tonewheels and rotary speaker.
Lew immerses himself gleefully in its sounds, perhaps with a kid-in-a-candy-store pleasure; gentle readers, think back to when you first encountered, say, a 100-instrument Casio keyboard and found delight in going through each sound, one-by-one.
Take for example “Belleza” which (if this writer’s ears don’t deceive him) unabashedly throws down some funky clavinet notes, bringing to mind Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” within the easygoing, electric piano-driven song that brings to mind the spirit of the breezy pop band True Love Always.
Lew employs a number of guest vocalists and collaborators on Spotlight People, which is a good idea, especially with the lovely singing from Emily Iverson on “Belleza” and Kira Magoon on “Emulous.” The arrangements are full but not indulgent—that is, not big just for the sake of being big—with each instrument’s sound shaped with care and purpose, from the gliding bass lines to the swift-yet-gentle guitar chord swipes.
It’s blatantly nostalgic with a worship of classic keyboards, and if that doesn’t bother you, the easy-to-like charm of Spotlight People is a worthwhile escapist diversion, lovingly crafted.