Wednesday. So far from the weekend in either direction. To make matters worse, I had a long day at work after making myself super-tired from a late cheese and wine night. My brain needs something older to pick it up off the floor.

I can’t decide what to post today. Wait, here we go. Brazzaville’s L’Orchestre Tele-Music’s Faux Marie. What a tune. It’s working…

The original ID3 tag tells me that “this group split away from Le Peuple some time between 1975 and 1978. Date of [this] record not known but pre mid 80s.” A little Google research didn’t tell me much about the band at all but apparently they were founded by Ballou Canta, a big name in Congo-Brazzaville music during the late 70s and early 80s.

You can buy a disc (not this one) here. Today’s tune comes off their self-titled album on K-Dance Productions.

…hold on a sec, my friend Mandy just buzzed and she tells me that she got engaged. No fucking way! Apparently this song brings good luck, too. Congrats, Mandy!

ps- zim, you’re a star.

Orchestre Tele-Music - Faux Marie

A few weeks ago at 2005’s last poker night Olivier passed me a good mix from Vibrations magazine featuring music from No Format, a small, high-quality label out of Paris, France.

One track in particular caught my ear for African sounds. It’s appropriately by another Keita, given yesterday’s post, but with quite a different sound. Mamani Keita is a little-known female vocalist from Mali who works with musicians both at home and abroad. She has a cool fusion sound of Mali-West-Electro-Folk that I quite like.

You can buy her last album at Calabash. Or, if you can wait, you can find today’s track on Keita’s soon to be released album that will be available at the No Format site in a month or so.

Mamani Keita - Djekafo

I know that many of you probably already have this album and that there have been a million reviews on the web, but I don’t care. It’s great stuff and today’s selection fits quite nicely with the Cap Verdian selections from yesterday.

I’ve posted Salif Keita a bunch of times on this site but his latest album is still worth mentioning.

Like many big-name West African musicians, lately Keita has been sticking more to his acoustic roots and less to the casio synth. While the album still may be overproduced in my opinion there are still some great tracks that highlight much that is great about contemporary West African acoustic guitar music, particularly that coming out of Mali.

A little more raw, a little less echo and fade effect, and Keita’s album would be even better. It’s still one of the year’s better mainstream West African releases.

Today’s track comes off Salif Keita latest album, M’Bemba, released in 2005 on Universal. It’s the first time in his musical career of over 35 years that he recorded an album in his native Bamako, Mali.

ps- see an interview video with Salif Keita by Benn loxo listener, Diego, on Excite.it here.

Salif Keita - Yambo

My friend Thierry passed me this album at the office today courtesy of one of our clients, RFI. What a nice surprise for a Tuesday afternoon.

Manuel Lopes Andrade, or Tcheka, is a young Cap Verdian musician who has been playing music seriously since about the age of 15 (he’s 32 now).

He sings in Creole over acoustic guitar and West African rhythms, notably the batuque style. Since starting to work with Cesoria Evora’s producer, José Da Silva, he’s released two albums.

From the RFI website,

“The winner of the RFI World Music Award 2005 is Tcheka, a musician from Cape Verde renowned for putting his own particular spin on a traditional sound known as batuque. Tcheka, who has recorded two albums to date, brought the house down at the RFI World Music Award ceremony held in Dakar on 10 November.”

Today’s tracks come off Tcheka’s latest, Nu Monda, released in late 2005 on Lusafrica.

Tcheka - Makriadu
Tcheka - Rozadi Rezadou

I’ve been meaning to post this song for a while, at least ever since Benn loxo listener, Ian, started trying to get me to post more Ivoirian music on this site.

Today we have a meeting of old and new. Some previously posted Ernesto Djedje and some Petit Denis, both from Ivory Coast. The Petit Denis song is about an Ernesto Djedje imitator who’s got the looks, got the voice, but just doesn’t have the talent. If you can understand French have a listen to the lyrics.. they’re pretty funny.

Petit Denis is an Ivoirian new-style zouglou musician popular with with the club-types in Abidjan and other parts of West Africa. I remember hearing his music being played in a couple bars in Abidjan back a few years ago. Today’s track comes off his 2001 release, Securité, which you can buy here.

ps- note the new Flash MP3 preview links I have to the left of every track. Just click on the play icon and the song will be automatically streamed your way. Not sure if I’m going to keep this feature on the site. What do you think? Useful?

Petit Denis - Ziglibity
Ernesto Djedje - Ziglibithiens

I’m in the mood for some more old-school pop-Africa sounds on this (finally) quiet Friday evening. Nothing like a glass of wine after work and some Kenyan twist from the 1960s to ease you into the weekend, eh?

As far as I know John Amutabi Nzenze is still alive today, around 65 years old and living in Nairobi, Kenya. Until recently he was still touring the country with his group, Wazalendo Eagles Band, playing the good old stuff for his Kenyan fans. Nzenze’s real fame came during the 1960s when he released Angelica Twist, a jangly guitar pop song that made the kids dance a mean twist.

There’s not much to say about this kind of music except that it’s dead simple and fun, but still somehow cooler than your mom’s Dixie Cups albums. Nzenze sings in Kiswahili, which I’ve always thought is a great-sounding language when sung.

You can grab this track and more from The Orchard’s Kenyan music sampler.

John Amutabi Nzenze - Angelica Twist

Happy new year, Benn loxo listeners. I know it’s been a while (again), but I’m over it.. and so are you once you listen to today’s selections. In fact, why don’t I do a few posts to play catch-up. I’d rather do this than clean-up my apartment. You see, last night was games night and there are cards, whisky glasses and poker chips everywhere.

South African pop music started hitting Western ears when the marabi sound emerged in the early decades of the 20th century. Marabi mixed American-style blues and jazz with some of the traditional forms popular at the time with black youth in South African urban centers.

To keep the post somewhat seasonal: at some stage during my family’s Christmas party someone inevitably busts out some Elvis’ Blue Christmas, sung or recorded. It’s a personal favourite. So it’s with great pleasure that I bring you some Elvis imitation post-marabi South African 1950s pop music from Benoni Rocket. Not only does Rocket have a great name, but his voice is smooth and the guitar jangle jangles just the way I like it on a Thursday.

Zim, thanks as always. Ms. Irish and the TristeOne, this music may just motivé me up to Gambetta for that late night dance afterall…

ps- that’s not Rocket in the photo, but instead Kool Keith from his album, Black Elvis.

Benoni Rocket - I’m Gonna Rocket
Benoni Rocket - I’m Gonna Shake Rattle and Roll
Benoni Rocket - Last Night

As promised, a second catch-up post to bring in the new year. And hey, I’ve never posted any music from Benin on this site so today we’ll hear a tune by the Gangbé Brass Band.

I don’t know about the group except that they’re from Benin and have a distinctly West African yet original sound. The production is polished but not too much, and the mixing is quite well done considering the potentially disastrous combination of instruments they use. I guess I’m a sucker for the horns a bit, too, since years ago I used to play trombone and sometimes still long for the days of blasting away my lips to some ska or big band deal. True horn chops, if you ask me, only come from the trombone.

Today’s track is my favourite from their 2001 release, Togbé. You can get their latest album, released one year ago, on Calabash.

Gangbé Brass Band - Gbéto