The Sound of Club Secousse Vol 1

Belgium’s Crammed label have been on a roll these last few years, what with Congotronics and its associated artists – Konono No 1, Staff Benda Bilili, Kasai Allstars – capturing the Western imagination and dance floor. In cahoots with the likes of remixers and DJs Radioclit they’ve kept their collective finger firmly on the urban Afro-electro pulse; here they capitalise on this ever-burgeoning market with a rhythmic (and also fabulously polyrhythmic) collection of trance-inducing excursions.

Fired by a remit to promote worldwide ghetto culture, each of the 17 tracks comes tried and tested from clubs from London to Moscow, Stockholm to São Paulo. There’s variety and nuance in these percussive mash-ups, too: Bab Lee’s pumping instrumental ‘Sous Les Cocotiers’ has been at the vanguard of the Ivory Coast’s coupé décalé movement for a few years now. Recorded in the middle of a Sierra Leonean civil war, ‘To May Ya’ by the now NYC-based bubu guru Janka Nabay is buoyed by its urgent female vocals; Angola’s snaky, sexy kuduro is represented by the rallying call that is Puto Prata’s ‘Zuata Zuata. From Zimbabwe comes Jusa Dementor’s African Horn Dance, a parping slice of Afro-tribal funk both infuriatingly catchy and vaguely irritating; and from South Africa comes the shangaan electro pioneer Thomas Chauke. A sense of fun is common to all the featured artists, who bend and twist traditional sounds into fleet and fancy shapes. A testament to the ingenuity of the ghetto, no matter what the scene – be it funana, cumbia or grime.