Kinshasa 1978: Originals and Reconstructions

This is a welcome reimagining of a remarkable recording that captured the early days of the Congotronics groups. Recorded in 1978 and released on the Ocora label in 1986, the album Zaire: Musiques Urbaines à Kinshasa was largely ignored by lovers of African traditional music and those that followed contemporary African popular music. It featured tradi-modern, which is a genre of music that takes traditional rhythms and melodic patterns and interprets them in a raunchy modern urban style. Played mostly on traditional drums, homemade percussion and likembe (thumb piano), the music is amplified to the point of distortion and performed with incessant repetition and vocal animations until it becomes a form of trance music. This new edition comes as a double-vinyl set, with reconstructions alongside the original four tracks from the Ocora release. French producer Martin Meissonnier (King Sunny Adé, Fela Kuti, Papa Wemba) has created remixes that retain the original trance-inducing elements with the addition of a modern heavy electronic dance beat.

The accompanying vinyl contains four lengthy alternative recordings (not remixed) from the four groups on the original session. Konono is a tradi-modern style of the Angolan refugee population based in Kinshasa and the group Konono No 1 are the leading exponents. Their amplified likembe music is loud, fast-paced and magnificently intense. It is no surprise that when they were eventually successfully marketed outside of Kinshasa it was to a European post-punk electronica audience. Orchestre Bambala are primarily a matanga (funeral) band originally from Bandundu region. Amateur musicians, they play an uplifting style led by accordion with metallic percussion. Orchestre Bana Luya and Sankayi both originate from Mbuji-Mayi in the eastern Kasai region and display characteristics of the moutouashi rhythm popular in that region. A fascinating and exciting musical style both in its original form and its modern remix version.