Synchro System & Aura

This is a very welcome reissue of the Nigerian juju maestro's second and third albums for Island Records. Sunny Adé's three albums for Chris Blackwell's label in the early 80s were partly responsible for the launch of the world music phenomenon. In the 70s Blackwell had taken the early rootsy reggae sound of Bob Marley's Wailers, slicked it up with some sophisticated production techniques, and sold it to a global audience. In the 80s he made a similar marketing coup and even presented Adé in a stunning concert at London's Lyceum, where Marley had recorded his spectacular live album. Synchro System & Aura takes some of Adé's gloriously languid and melodic extended musical themes and condenses them into radio-friendly proportions. Juju is traditionally a lengthy meandering style that, in a live setting, develops over a duration of hours. Song cycles take up complete albums in Nigeria, with musical themes drifting in and out of a constant percussion-heavy shuffle. For the Western market it was necessary to make the musical statement more succinctly, and to help make it more palatable, there's the added benefit of sympathetic production, dub-style effects and synthesizer. Fortunately, the sanitisation process takes away very little of Sunny Adé's magic. At the heart is still the incessant percussive bed, with layers of electric guitar and stabs of talking drum laced with the burning tones of the Hawaiian steel guitar. For all those who feel as if they have been Afro-beaten to death recently, this juju classic will provide a refreshing alternative Nigerian rhythm.