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What that means to us now is that there are five or six decades of thrilling pop music out there that Americans have never heard. The floodgates are opening, and savvy reissue producers are releasing fantastic albums and compilations that offer an authentic, in-depth, and only lightly mediated glimpse of the history of pop around the planet.
For me nothing can top the double CD Authenticité: the Syliphone Years. “Authenticité” was the name given to the Guinean government’s postcolonial effort to establish a progressive arts program that retained traditional roots, and the music chronicled here, produced between 1965 and 1980, reflects the most fertile period in the country’s history. Some of Guinea’s greatest bands–including Bembeya Jazz National, Keletigui et Ses Balladins, the Horoya Band, and Pivi et les Balladins–emerged during this era, nurtured not only by governmental largesse but by vigorous competition between groups. You can hear a heavy Cuban influence on most of the tracks–a common feature of West African music at the time–but the music also overflows with creativity. Lilting yet propulsive polyrhythms and gently sashaying horn arrangements give way to furious grooves, searing guitar, and fiercely declamatory singing. Pivi’s version of the ubiquitous “Samba” rocks as hard as anything I’ve ever heard from Africa, and even at its most restrained this stuff bristles with an inspired synthesis of styles and textures. The set includes a gorgeous 44-page booklet that reproduces many of the original album covers. I’m more than ready for all those albums to be reissued in full.
David S. Ware Quartet, Renunciation (Aum Fidelity)Takayanagi Masayuki New Direction for the Art, Complete “La Grima” (Doubt Music)Luigi Nono, Quando Stanno Morendo (Diario Polacca No. 2) (Edition RZ)Wado e Realismo Fantástico, A Farsa do Samba Nublu Do (Outros Discos)David Bowie, Station to Station (Virgin)
