Entries associated with the tag "Extra Golden":

The title track from Agwambo (Kanyo), the new album by veteran Kenyan band Bana Kadori, is like a burned-out car left by the side of the road: it's an optimistic benediction for opposition leader Raila "Agwambo" Odinga, written when he was expected to win the presidential election held in December. Of course, Odinga was edged by incumbent Mwai Kibaki, and widespread suspicion of voting fraud helped plunge what had been one of Africa's most stable countries into fierce political and ethnic violence that's left more than a thousand dead, hundreds of thousands driven from their homes, and the nation in shock. Kenya has been battered economically as well, and many formerly integrated neighborhoods have become homogenous ethnic enclaves. Yesterday Kibaki and Odinga signed a power-sharing agreement in Nairobi, brokered by Kofi Annan, that creates a powerful new prime ministerial position for Odinga, but considering that the two men have failed to work together in the past, the future of this new government is uncertain at best.

The Bana Kadori song was recorded last summer during the band's first American tour, which included shows for expat Kenyan communities in Pennsylvania and Texas and a New York rally for Odinga. Most of the tune is sung in Luo, but it also includes an English-language litany of Odinga's virtues: "He has suffered through detention without trial / For the sake of liberation / He was a staunch advocate of the Second Liberation / That gave Kenya the historic repeal of section 2A / That brought multiparty politics to our land," and so on. It's not exactly poetry, but given such enthusiasm it's easy to see why Odinga's defeat--especially in what seems likely to have been a corrupt contest--would come as a bitter blow to so many.

Benga, the modern guitar-driven dance style that dominates Kenya's musical landscape, is a major part of Bana Kadori's sound, but the band also has a deep love for Congolese rumba and uses its languorous, soothing grooves to temper benga's energy. The music is wonderfully stripped down--none of the chintzy synths that so many African pop stars use, just electric guitars, percussion, saxophone, and bass. Perhaps the most satisfying element is the gorgeous, lush harmony singing. It's one thing for a group to nail a chorus, but these guys often sing whole songs together without the slightest wobble out of tune. The record was produced by Nyathi Otenga Flying Studios (the mobile setup run by Alex Minoff and Ian Eagleson of Extra Golden, who also own Kanyo Records), and they captured the music honestly and without fuss. Let's hope Kenya's future is as smooth as this album.

Today's playlist:

Liu Fang, Silk Sound (Accords Croises)
Vinicius Cantuaria, Cymbals (Koch)
Farmers Market, Surfin' USSR (Ipecac)
Box, Studio 1 (Rune Grammofon)

The recent elections in Kenya have been dogged by charges of fraud, and in their wake the country has been rocked by ethnic violence--hundreds have been murdered, there’s been widespread looting, and a national curfew has the country on virtual lockdown.

The transcontinental band Extra Golden--whose fine second album, Hera Ma Nono, was released in the fall by Thrill Jockey--has several members in Kenya. Ian Eagleson and Alex Minoff, who are based in D.C., are asking the public to help their bandmates in Nairobi, Opiyo Bilongo (pictured), Onyango Wuod Omari, and Onyango Jagwasi. As it says on the band’s Web site, “They all have large extended families for whose well-being they are entirely responsible. Of course, as musicians, that well-being is provided for through nightly work at clubs. With dusk-to-dawn curfews in place, these men are all unable to work, and a subsistence that was already hand-to-mouth has become non-existent.”

Eagleson and Minoff are asking for donations of just five dollars, though they’ll welcome any amount. Obviously this mess affects thousands and thousands of Kenyans, most of whom could probably use five bucks too, but at least this way you can know who you’re helping. Further details and Paypal info are available here.

Today’s playlist:

Brian Groder, Torque (Latham)
Jackson Harrison Trio, Land Tides (Hatology)
Teresa Cristina e Grupo Semente, Delicada (EMI, Brasil)
Tunng, Comments of the Inner Chorus (Full Time Hobby/Static Caravan)

Last year Chicagoans got a rare chance to hear some benga music, the dominant dance style of Kenya for the last four or five decades, when the band Extra Golden played here during the World Music Festival. The band was started by Ian Eagleson and Alex Minoff of the Washington D.C. indie rock band Golden as a collaboration with some of the benga musicians Eagleson met while pursuing ethnomusicological studies in Kenya. While a few tracks on the band’s debut album, Ok-Oyot System, were tainted by whiffs of white funk-rock, it otherwise conveyed some of the frothy rhythmic joy of benga. Not long after the record was made the key Kenyan participant, Otieno Jagwasi, died from complications related to AIDS. His able replacement for the group’s U.S. tour was Opiyo Bilongo, a dazzling singer and guitarist who’d been a steady presence on the benga scene for more than a decade.

Recently Eagleson advanced his efforts to expose this effervescent music to American audiences by starting Kanyo Records, which has released a wonderful CD of music by Bilongo and his band, Bilongo Golden Stars. What Do People Want? packs nearly 75 killer minutes of overlapping, bubbly electric guitar lines, propulsive polyrhythms, and hypnotic group vocals into six extended jams. Eagleson helped Bilongo record the music back in 2004 in two sessions at Alfrose Bar, the club where the band played five nights a week. Because benga music is made for dancers while simultaneously emphasizing its Luo lyrics, some of its most germane appeal might escape U.S. listeners who, strangely, have generally gravitated more to less frenetic African music—like the hypnotic, circular strains of Malian music. Unfortunately, this tendency has made benga a relatively obscure presence and it’s often hard to track down in record shops, although work by pioneers like D.O. Misiani and Victoria Kings can sometimes be found. This situation makes this excellent recording even more valuable. Of course, the current state of record stores in the U.S. means this CD will probably be hard to find unless you’re looking online. The CD is being distributed by Thrill Jockey, which also released the Extra Golden album.