Togetherings

Afrobeat! It started in the West African tropics and blazed a trail almost as far as the Arctic… well, Finland, in fact. The Blassics are seven denizens of the Land of the Midnight Sun, and they have beefed up the sound from their previous albums with a percussionist from Benin and MikiMac, a vocalist from Ethiopia, on Togetherings. It's MikiMac who transforms the album's opener, ‘In a Sincere Way’, from an infectious marriage of Afrobeat and funk - with a riff straight out of ‘Sex Machine’ - into something more startling and redolent of the golden age of Addis. Like fellow Scandinavians, the KutiMangoes, this is a mid-sized band with a big heart. Drums and bass, industrious percussion and a frisky guitar underpin a three-piece horn section characterised by an unusual blend of trumpet, flute and baritone sax.

Recorded live and direct onto analogue tape, the band simmers menacingly on the excellent ‘Hagerun Geleba’ and ‘Nurona Bilhatu’ and bubbles purposefully on the closer, ‘Block Hipat’. Only the improvised ‘Why is the Chicken Running?’ makes one wish that the poor bird would just get to the other side of the road. Notwithstanding the odd longueur, this is hot stuff from the frozen north.