Review | Songlines

Flavour of Africa

Rating: ★★

View album and artist details

Album and Artist Details

Artist/band:

Libreville

Label:

Libreville

May/2022

French duo Libreville make music that radiates musical and political positivity and in the current climate that feels like a welcome beam of sunshine. The pair’s political consciousness coupled with their magpie like approach to picking up international inspiration result in a recording full of percussive global groove and passionate polemic.

One gets the feeling that Libreville’s natural habitat is a festival stage or warehouse party and perhaps as a result they struggle a little on recording. For instance, although their programmed or looped electronic sounds are put to good work establishing and holding a strong groove, without an audience to respond to, they occasionally seem to cause some jarring moments in rhythmic transitions. Similarly, raw vocal stylings jostle throughout with more chanson style singing, to mainly good effect, but sometimes the lyrics fade into a flat ending. Again: this would probably go unnoticed live but is more obvious on a recording. Throughout there’s a charming naivety and literality of approach, which, while engaging in its simplicity, may not please every listener. While there are hints at the dub sensibilities that veteran producer Frédéric Luneau brings to the party, I’d have liked more of it.

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