What's Not Enough About That?

This third album shows how Vula Viel have very quickly become a band whose new releases you breathlessly await and each time you discover a more satisfying result. Deftly engineered and mixed by Dilip Harris (Sons of Kemet, Mulatu Astatke) it both hits you in the gut and takes you into meditative realms. Bex Burch (gyil), Ruth Goller (electric bass) and Jim Hart (kit drums) have become a seriously impressive trio.

Burch's addictive compositions and consummate gyil playing are rooted in the Dagaare traditions of Upper West Ghana, in which she immersed herself in her long musical apprenticeship. But the sinuous interplay between the three musicians, their interlocking pulses and ever weaving timbres and lines become one muscular force, the communal wellspring of their music. The dynamic has taken a new direction as they add elements from their contemporary classical and exploratory music hinterlands… choral patterns, electronic nods and waves, sonic plateaus on which the music hypnotically hovers before it moves on. Plus stellar vocal appearances from New York's Downtown scene exploratory legend Peter Zummo and from Koo Nimo, Ghanaian professor and palm wine virtuoso. Maybe their in-house singing and vocal melodies require a little more attention and some lyrics that reach out beyond the bubble of the band. But Vula Viel are on fire… what's not enough about that?