June 13, 2015

Balance

Another song that has been haunting me for the last few weeks months. I have lost track of where and when and from whom I have copied this video, but it seems to me that it must have been a private recording. This has some negatives, notably the flaws in the sound (after 3'48), but in all the positives have the upperhand.
This song, "Kabambare" composed by singer Papy Tex and performed by him with Pépé Kallé and Empire Bakuba was released in 1985 on the album of the same title. But to be honest the album version can only be described as 'anemic' in comparison to the superb full-blooded version in this video. And this is mainly due to the technical imperfection of this recording, and in particular the balance between vocals and supporting instruments.

I add that in general I am not a fan of Empire Bakuba, let alone an expert on the group. But this video is official and irrefutable proof of the vocal talents of Papy Tex, Dilu Dilumona and Pépé Kallé, both as individual vocalists and as a harmonic trio.
It explains too why Franco was desperate to have a Pépé Kallé voice in his orchestra (see this post)...


EDIT September 12, 2015: I have mixed up the two songs of this video. The song you find above is "La Terre Sainte", and the one I have added below is "Kabambare". This song too demonstrates the vocal talent of the singers of Empire Bakuba, and adds to my point that these live versions are more interesting than the studio version.
"La Terre Sainte" (the holy land) is composed by a certain Dadou; and this is probably not the Dadou of the songs with this title.

June 12, 2015

Obsession

I have been struggling to compile traditional songs from the DR Congo for a podcast. The struggling was certainly not a result of the lack of choice, but entirely the result of my obsession with this cassette.
I got stuck on this cassette, and just couldn't get any further.

The recordings on this cassette are generally labelled as 'traditional music', and I am sure there must be some form of passing on from one generation to the next involved. Unfortunately the label 'traditional' suggests, at least to a large section of western audiences, cultures on the brink of extinction, archaeological finds, ethnomusicologists travelling to remote regions to record octogenerians, staged performances of natives in costumes which even their grandparents would be too embarrassed to wear. These recordings are indeed made by an ethnomusicologist, and it seems more than likely that quite a bit of travelling had to be done to get to the location where the recording took place. But "staged performance": I don't think so. And the performers are perhaps nów in their eighties, but they weren't at the time of the recordings in the mid-1970s.

The recordings radiate the confidence and general optimism which is typical of a lot of - if not all - Congolese music of that era. This is particularly the case with the songs in these recording which are performed by women and girls. The casual boldness of the singing, the natural and unforced interaction between the individual women, who manage to combine chaos with harmony, is simply spellbinding.

Take the third song on side A. Every participant is free to add her own individual melodic line to the collective. The effect is both kaleidoscopic and harmonic. I would have loved to be there when the recording took place!

Magic can be found in all tracks of this cassette; there are simply no weaker songs. Besides the songs sung by women, either accompanying themselves or accompanied by an issanji or sanza ensemble, there are songs sung by men. These are, fortunately, in the same vein, with the same tendency towards controlled anarchy in the chorus. The last two songs are different from the others in that these are examples of the evolution towards modern instruments, - in this case a acoustic guitar and a bottle... The result is mesmerising and nimble, delicate and confusing.

I am sure you have recognised the musical style as the one that was modernised and commercialised by Tshala Muana. Personally I find that she took the evolution a step too far and has lost the magic of the original, which can still be heard on this cassette. I can only pray that some of the essence of this brilliant music has survived, somewhere in the immenseness of the border regions between Congo and Angola.

LLCT 7313