WOEBOT

This set contains an unfailingly excellent selection of music, however it's a more muddled proposition as far as provenance is concerned. Ibrahima Sylla, the man behind the collections, is one of the giant behind-the-scenes figures of African music. He was supremo of the legendary Syliphone Conakry label of Guinea, one of the peerless labels on any continent. The original Editions Syliphone sell for huge quantities nowadays. The quite superb second volume of this collection, with its frequently politically-inflammatory, heavy, almost "garage-band-like" recordings, is drawn from his extensive back catalogue.

I think it's quite appropriate that the discs covering Senegal and Mali are presented alongside this material. For one thing the same ethnic groups co-inhabit these three closely-grouped countries. National boundaries are but lines drawn on the map in comparison to the strength of the tribal affiliations of the Bambara, Peulhs, Dogon, Manding etc. There's a distinct continuity of sound between the three sets as well. The Afro-Cuban influence tends to be heard most strongly in the Sengalese music, residing as that country does at the Westernmost point of the continent. The same kinky horn parts, when they wind up in Timbuktu, are distinctly weirder-sounding.

In contrast the music on the Malian disc sounds bizarrely more "American" (peculiar to ascribe regional ethnicity to that country). As is well known, the Mississippi Delta Blues has uncanny resonances with the music of the desert griots. If I might be permitted to digress briefly, I always remember with great satisfaction mis-hearing a dancehall track in on the radio in Dakar (the capital of Senegal) confusing it with an indigenous song merely on the strength of the familiarity of its tuning within its supplanted context, quite like passing through a mirror backwards. The 1970s-era, amplified desert rock of Mali often manages to resemble the electric blues juggernaut of The Grateful Dead or The Allman Brothers Band, guitar solos to boot, albeit in a fascinatingly bizarre fashion.

Sylla licensed the Malian material from their government in 1987. This amounted to to two volumes of five LPs which the Malian goverment curated for the "First Young People's Artistic and Cultural Biennale of 1970". Before you reach for your gun, it ought to be stressed that the Malian Government undertook a courageous experiment to record this music. Without their efforts there would be no Radio Mali and precious little music recorded at all. Mali's legendary Rail Band were the exception to the rule in that they weren't managed by the Ministry of Culture but by the Railway Board of Mali. The quality of the material on the Mali disc is fabulous though this will be the second time Sylla has released it. Previously it was to be found on the double CD collections "Banzoumana" and "Sira Mory".

The Senegalese discs showcase music influenced by the ideas of "Negritude". This movement, spearheaded by Leopold Senghor, sought to redefine a Modern African culture. As the 1970s progressed, Senegalese musicians sought to mute the influence of imported forms like Rumba and Salsa and to focus more on the music of their own heritage. It would be a simplification to say this was a drive towards "folkiness" in the traditional Western sense, as it went hand-in-hand with a self-consciously experimental attitude towards intra-african fusion (this is marked in the Malian recordings as well, on which young people from very different ethnic backgrounds sought to create a manageable fusion) as well as embracing modern recording techniques. A project like America's legendary cross-Latin fusion project Grupo Folklorico Y Experimental Nuevoyorquino would be a very good comparison.

The cuckoo here is the collection of Congolese recordings. Drawn from a much smaller pool of artist's recordings, miles away from the other three countries in the Central African belt. It's a quite charming collection, if consisting of a safer, distinctly Afro-Cuban vein of music. Regardless of this anamoly, I thoroughly recommend all four discs and they're available at Sterns.