Senegal 70

This trip back in time – some 40 years – is all courtesy of Analog Africa's crate-digger extraordinaire, Samy Ben Redjeb. The dozen tracks here have never been heard on CD before and capture an exciting moment in Dakar. An extraordinary burst of musical creativity, in part inspired by the visits of artists such as James Brown, the Jackson Five and Celia Cruz, injected a new diversity and experimentalism into Senegalese music. We hear the first classic Afro-Cuban recordings by Orchestra Bawobab (sic) and Amara Touré et le Star Band de Dakar in similar vein, but the rest of the names here will be less familiar to listeners. Fangool play a dub-heavy reggae with a muezzin-style vocal. Orchestra Groupement Mobil d’Intervention offer an early Senegalese take on a kind of psyched-up Afrobeat. King N’gom et Les Perles Noires play Cuban son with a Dave Brubeck ‘Take Five’-style beat. Orchestre Laye Thiam's three tracks sound gloriously out of this world, fusing African rhythms, garage rock, James Brown funk and mariachi trumpets in futuristic fashion. A meticulous 44-page booklet recounts in loving detail the life stories of the bands and producers and includes a fantastic selection of evocative period photos to round out what may be the best archive release of the year.