Femi Kuti - Africa Shrine

Band/artist - Femi Kuti
Genre(s) - Afrobeat (jazz, world music)
Origin - Nigeria
Album - Africa shrine
Year of release - 2004

...and now for something completely different. Afrobeat is an amalgam of jazz, rock, and African traditional music. Very uplifting music to say the least, and much more structured than regular jazz - it even has choruses, and catchy ones they are too! Tribal percussion is coupled to Western instruments like guitars, sax and Hammond organ, but still with characteristic African melodies. As you may have guessed, Femi is the eldest son of the famous Fela Kuti, and has stepped into his father's footsteps as a saxophonist and activist. He blows a mean sax and has a strong, proud voice. He also shares his father's radical democratic, pan-African viewpoints that are being expressed clearly through the lyrics as a call for all Africans to step up to the plate and help build a self-sufficient, self-determining Africa. This live album was recorded in Nigeria and is hard not to enjoy: it crackles with energy and breathes the spirit of the continent. It paints you a picture, and then I don't mean of the wide plains drowning in sunset with giraffes striding along the horizon, but of a people, struggling for survival in a world wrecked by colonialism.

1. Intro
2. Dem bobo
3. Oyimbo
4. I wanna be free
5. If them want to hear
6. Eho
7. 1, 2, 3, 4
8. Yeparipa
9. Can't buy me
10. Bring me the man now
11. '97
12. Intro to Shotan
13. Shotan
14. Water no get enemy
    

Load it down (62.10 MB)

Peter Gabriel - Secret World Live

Band/artist - Peter Gabriel
Genre(s) - Progressive rock
Origin - United Kingdom
Album - Secret World Live
Year of release - 1994

Peter Gabriel is one of those artists I always thought I'd never be able to like - back when one all-too processed snare drum hit could turn me away from a band forever. Hearing this particular version of Solsbury Hill later made me realize how stupid I'd been... again. This whole album has a wonderful wealth of different sounds and textures from a very large and versatile backing band, including Tony Levin on bass, you know, King Crimson's very bald, very moustached stick-bass player. I've also really come to appreciate Gabriel as a singer, his voice has a very pleasant, rugged sort of timbre, if that makes sense. He lets the glorious afrobeat-influences come to the fore in a couple of the most beautiful songs on the release, like Come Talk to Me and Shaking the Tree. And again, I have to stress the beauty of Solsbury Hill. What a song! It reminds me very much of when I was fired from the hospital after 14 days of being cooped up on one grey, depressive corridor, and I was waiting for my parents to collect me. My heart going "boom boom boom"... Son, he said, grab your things I've come to take you home.

1. Come talk to me
2. Steam
3. Accross the river
4. Slow marimbas
5. Shaking the tree
6. Red rain
7. Blood of Eden
8. Kiss that frog
9. Washing of the water
10. Solsbury Hill
11. Digging in the Dirt
12. Sledgehammer
13. Secret world
14. Don't give up
15. In your eyes
    

Load it down (97.76 MB)