Pelerinaj

Vodou priest, actor, singer and choreographer Erol Josué spent two decades living in Paris and New York before returning home to Haiti, where for the last decade he has been the director general of the National Bureau of Ethnology, the museum in Port-au-Prince, which was founded 80 years ago to promote vodou culture as a positive force. This reviewer first heard Josué's music when World Music Network bundled his impressive 2007 debut album Régléman together as a bonus disc with 2014's Rough Guide to Voodoo compilation.

Accompanied by a Haitian drumming ensemble and the all-female Nègès Fla Vodou choir on several tracks, Pelerinaj (Pilgrimage)builds on the way that disc took the trance rhythms and vernacular chants of vodou into new sonic terrain, synthesising Haitian roots styles with contemporary jazz, funk, electronic beats and much else besides over 18 dazzling tracks. Singing soulfully in French and Haitian Creole, Josué pays tribute to various vodou/Yoruba spirits such as ‘Chango’; the queen of the night ‘Rén Sobo’; the sun deity ‘Ati Sole’, and ‘Erzulie’, which has a bluesy, sensuous arrangement by Gotan Project's Philippe Cohen Solal. Two years ago, Songlines published a list of ten essential Haitian albums that ranged from Lakou Mizik and Boukman Eksperyans to Moonlight Benjamin and Melissa Laveaux. Pelerinaj deserves to take a place near the very top of that list.