~music Listening Club 2 - Dancing Time
The second week of our listening club is here already! This week we focus on our first user-voted obscure record: Dancing Time, the Best of Eastern Nigeria's Afro Rock Exponents 1973-77.
Here is the pitch given by @arghdos :
I'll nominate The Funkees': Dancing Time. This is some of the best afro-funk that has made it's way to the west. Bandcamp had a great feature on the Funkees a few years ago, they started as a band right at the end of the Nigerian civil war, and became defining proponents of Nigerian funk (along with the Hykkers, BLO, etc.) in the shadow the the giant in the room (i.e., Fela). They were much more influenced by sounds like James Brown and Santana (e.g., check out this ridiculously good cover of War's Slippin' Into Darkness), and present an entirely different side of mid-70's Nigerian music. In 1973, they moved to London and released two albums under John Peel before disbanding under internal strife in 1977. This album collects all their released Nigerian 45's with the best of the London recorded material.
Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the band, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Dancing Time. Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and comment at any point in the week!
If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on most platforms here.
I'm really glad this was picked as the album for the second week as Afro music (Rock, Funk, Soul, Pop, etc) is something I know very little about but every time I see it somewhere and listen to it, I enjoy. This album was no exception and I often found myself nodding my head and tapping my foot in time to the beats on more than one occasion.
I think the biggest appeal of Afro music for me is that it simultaneously feels like something familiar and yet also something completely new, so I experience a truly unique mix of nostalgia and discovery at the same time while listening to it. The other reason I really like it (and International music in general) is because, especially when I am working, I find music with lyrics I can understand incredibly distracting. A lot of people tend to listen to electronic or purely instrumental music for this exact reason but I think human voices are the most compelling of instruments and without them music often feels somewhat hollow to me. With International music I get the best of both worlds in that regard. This album had a few lyrics in English but they were generally pretty simplistic phrases that didn't distract me (the accents probably helped with that too) and the majority of lyrics were not English.
As to the album itself, I am generally a huge 70s rock/funk/psychedelic fan so this was right up my alley. I am also a huge reggae fan and the combination of traditional rock/funk instruments combined with the African drums/snares/bells gave me a serious reggae vibe as well. I feel like I have spoken enough already so won't get into a breakdown of the album song by song or anything like that, but I will say that this album is definitely going in my regular rotation of 70s Rock/Funk/Reggae music... so thank you for introducing it and The Funkees to me, @arghdos. I will have to start digging around for more 70s Afro Rock/Funk in the future now, too.
p.s. Thanks for taking the reins with this idea too, @Whom. It's been really fun so far. :)
Glad you dug it, I've got about a million other great afro-beat / funk / highlife / ... compilations hanging around. Feel free to hit me up if you ever need a fix.
I definitely agree with this, or at least... at points. If I'm concentrating on the graph-algorithm I need to implement to determine data-types for instructions, vocals (or at least, those I'm not intimately familiar with to the point of not needing to listen to them) are a bridge too far. If I'm writing documentation, you can feel free to sing to me about heart-break though :P
Heh... Fix attained already:
https://tildes.net/~music/2wi/tidiani_kone_orchestre_poly_rythmo_djanfa_magni
https://tildes.net/~music/2wr/sahara_all_star_band_jos_feso_jaiye
Those two are about to send me down related song rabbit holes for the rest of the afternoon, I suspect. ;)
I re-listened to this a few times in the last week to get ready for this thread. One thing I was surprised by was the differences (but yet, intensely similar character) between the tracks recorded in Nigeria and those in London. I seemingly forgot about that since my last listen
For instance, the first few tracks are very clearly of Nigerian origin; they've got the classic, laid-back Tony Allen-esque Afro drum-beat, and also have a bit of Mbira instrumentation in the back (check Akpankoro). I think what really sets the Funkees apart is when you make it to track #4, Abraka -- this is where the fusion of Afro and Euro/American funk kicks in, but the funny thing to me is that the groove of the first few tracks is undeniably still there, or as Bandcamp put it:
There's a couple of standout tracks I'll mention for anyone not ready to commit to the whole thing (it is a rather long album):
Abraka - a downright nasty afro-funk groover, you get the impression this one coulda gone for 10-15 minutes in a live session no sweat
Acid Rock - jesus, that syncopated intro is amazing. I'm going to have to steal that for my annual Frank-Zappa inspired sound-collage.
Slipping into Darkness - I have a particular fascination with afro or reggae covers of American songs (e.g., Toots' take on Country Roads). I highly recommend headphones for this one (and turn it the fuck up), the beat is aggressive beyond measure, the downbeat would break your average drum :P
303 - No vocals necessary, this is a four-minute dance party.
Salem - I really like the fade-in / chant vocal intro on this one, and then the song is probably the best sounding on the entire album, infectious bass, mixed (but primarily African) vocals, and a beautiful funk-guitar riff. Perfection
Looking forward to next week!
on the meta side, can you also tag these 'Listening Club' so we can dig through? This series is such a good idea.
Done
fantastic! Thanks for doing this.
Hm, I don't have much to add to this one. I wasn't much of a fan, but it honestly just very rarely caught my ear. I think I need more vocal quirks and charisma I can latch onto in my funk music.
I found myself constantly impressed by the guitarist on here, though. They all seem like very competent musicians, but I don't think there was anything on here to really make it shine through for me.
But still, thanks for suggesting this, @arghdos! It's nice to hear something that I wasn't expecting to get voted in, at least :)