O Ku Ngwo Di Ochi

Fifty years ago the Oriental Brothers were a kind of Nigerian boy band. Hailing from the Igbo-dominated eastern region of the country (the reason for their name) the quintet was led by the late lead singer Sir Warrior and made its debut in 1973, playing a mix of Nigerian highlife and the makossa rhythms of neighbouring Cameroon popularised by Manu Dibango, laced with a dash of rumba. Over the years the group splintered into various competing iterations, reformed and then split up again.

This is the first Oriental Brothers album in more than 20 years and only guitarist and singer Ferdinand Dan Satch and conga player Livinus Aquila Alaribe survive from the original line-up. Produced in Nigeria by Lucas Silva, DJ and boss of the Bogotá-based label Palenque who cites the band as a seminal influence on the Afro-Colombian rhythms of champeta, the key tracks here are ‘Anyi Abiala Ozo’ with an impassioned vocal from Dansatch and the joyous 11-minute romp of the title-track (which translates as ‘He Died of Laughter’). The personnel may have changed, but the sound and style remains the same: if you were told this was an archive release from the 1970s rather than a new recording, there would be no reason to disbelieve.