The first word through my mind when I cued up this was “disconnected” as in disconnected from almost anything that would be ‘normal’ in music.
The combination of a Griot singer from Burkina Faso – Kaito Winse – and a noise/punk pair – Benjamin Chaval (drums and electronics) and Arnaud Paquotte (bass) - out of Brussels is not, on any planet, going to be ‘easy listening’ but the mixture works – brilliantly. I found anything else that I cued up afterwards signally ordinary.
From the beginning of ‘Sunguru’ with a heavy bass note stretched until it is joined by percussion and finally vocal you are intrigued and disconcerted in equal terms and with odd bloops and bleeps intruding on the building rhythmic noise there are facets to grab the attention in every direction. The treatment continues through ‘Lebere’ with occasional moments of quiet hanging in that solid bass note and Kaito’s whispered (spoken) vocal.
Kaito is a multi-instrumentalist and leads off ‘Douaga’ with stirring flute playing until beckoning in the others who bring the most conventional bass and drum rhythms so far on the album. Even so, the track is extreme, aggressive, desperate and ultimately disquieting.
The music occasionally approaches normality – as on ‘Eya’ where Kaito’s Griot vocalising is underpinned by electronics – but even then, the treatment of the electronics stand at odds with the tradition.
All eight tracks have elements of the powerful and the – apparently – discordant but there is structure to this music, albeit not obvious structure or conventional, and the music is ultimately really satisfying. It is clear that the three are all excellent musicians, no feeling of noise without meaning and no sense that the three are making noise for the sake of it.
An excellent, if difficult, album that rewards the listener who is prepared to give it time and feed energy back into it.
