Dur-Dur, Vol 5

It looks to me like this decade is seeing a huge growth in sales of retro world music albums, which the hardworking crate–digging labels like Soundway and Strut have done much to foster. This Somalian jewel is so uniquely fresh, funky and infused with East African melodies that, even in 2013, it’s sounding like the reissue of the year. From the 60s through to the early 90s Somali music experienced a golden age. Rural and urban music flourished in the hands of a host of talented musicians, inspired by the waves of soul, funk, rock and reggae that swept across Africa from the diaspora.

This release has been mastered from a cassette released by the Dur-Dur Band in 1987; it’s a treasure marinated in analogue rumble and tape hiss, from way back when Dur-Dur were a major feature in the Mogadishu-based dance music scene in Somalia. They seem to have been quite a hefty orchestra at their peak, which this may well represent. Dur-Dur boasted no less than four lead singers, three backing singers and about ten instrumentalists, so it’s a mighty sound. Each track bristles with interlocking rhythms, brass lines, kit drums, percussion and what sounds like a drum machine on occasions, presided over by one of their star vocalists drenched in delay, singing haunting but muscular melodies, sumptuously filled with Arabic, Indian and African nuances. It often strikes you that this music is a little like an East African form of veteran Bollywood. Afro-beat is a close relative here, but so is old-school soul and reggae and the whole musical confection just lifts you higher and higher. One essential musical health warning however: avoid the opening track.

The story of Somalian music has a happy ending thus far, which hopefully bodes well long term for Mali. Over two decades, civil war destroyed a great deal, including this band, whose musicians fled into exile – where Somali music often flourished. The Al-Shabaab regime did ban music for a while, but now those days are gone and musicians are reported to be returning to Mogadishu.