Wedding Me Ware Wo

A five-piece London crew with a taste for ponchos, fringes and clashing African textiles, AJ Holmes & The Hackney Empire are currently doing very nicely at club nights and festival stages programmed by Global Local and the indefatigable Chris Tofu. After support slots for the likes of David Byrne and collaborations with some of the capital’s finest African musicians – from iconic palm-wine exponent Abdul Tee-Jay to Nigerian grime star Afrikan Boy – the creatively clad collective deliver their debut disc.

The single, ‘Fraudian Slip’ (sic), is a relentlessly joyful, gloriously unhinged slice of party fun with growly vocals by Kastro, MC of West London’s Secousse Nights, and posh-boy witticisms from Mr Holmes that are part Mike Skinner, part Stewie from Family Guy. Sirens and other sound effects vie and blend over ringing guitar, pounding disco beats and all-together-now choruses as Holmes waxes on the benefits of immigration, and its role in this new musical milieu. Electro producer duo Radioclit (of MIA and Amadou & Mariam fame) were so impressed by the Barking-born Holmes that they invited his band to be residents at the Secousse Club, a nightspot where borders between countries, genders, sexualities and lifestyles were happily dissolved. Repeated gigging has tightened an act that might have been a flash in the pan: ‘The Story of the New Electric Hi Life’ sees Holmes spinning a yarn over music that takes in merengue, chachacha, rumba and palm-wine styles over chugging upbeat rhythms. ‘Good Luck Always Follows You’ is an electro-ballad that demonstrates that Holmes can actually sing. Much of this would sound equally at home on a dancefloor in Freetown or Accra as it might on Radio 1.