duggup

Artist: Baka Beyond
Website: www.myspace.com/bakabeyond or www.bakabeyond.net/
Track Name: Sad Among Strangers
Playback: flash
Download?:No

Jools has pointed out that today’s selection is a tad “vigorous” to be “Chill” but I think it fits. I can’t actually remember the first time I heard this band (I am positive that it was this millennium rather than the last), but I do remember that finding them was a serendipitous accident. I was searching for AfroCelt and this band popped up in the search engine as a related item (the vagaries of search engines).

Here is the background from the website…

Baka Beyond were originally inspired by Martin Cradick & Su Hart’s visits to the Baka Forest People in Cameroon. While there they played music with and recorded the Baka and have continued to play and record a mix of music written with & inspired by the Baka.

Baka Beyond consists of musicians from 6 countries in the Celtic fringes of Europe and the West coast of Africa that join together to play the most original live world fusion sound around. The spirit of the music lives in the rhythm. All Baka Beyond’s rhythms are played by human beings not machines !

So since their start in 1992 they have racked up six albums and made a lot of interesting music, you can hear a lot of it at Baka Beyond radio as well as the two sites at the top of the page and the Baka Beyond Bio makes for an interesting read.

The current album “Baka Live” is a collaboration between Baka Beyond and Baka Gbine.

Baka Gbiné are Baka musicians from the village of Banana, near the Cameroon border with Congo, deep in the rainforest. Using guitars, percussion, voices and dance they play modern songs heavily influenced by both their traditional music and the Congolese music they hear on the radio. For most of them, it was their first journey outside their rainforest home, and for all of them their first trip outside Africa.

So we have a mashup of musical and cultures, that is well worth some of your time. The voices and rhythms will be in your head in an eye blink and will stay there for days.

thatch is fascinated by guitars, music, guitars, production, silly noises, guitars and used to be a musician. Did I mention the thing about the guitars?
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