Bobo yéyé : Belle époque in Upper Volta

"Analog Africa's 2011 compilation Bambara Mystic Soul provided an excellent introduction to the scene; its superlative contents suggesting there was a treasure trove waiting to be discovered. For this further exploration, Numero have fixed their gaze on one of the country's cultural hotbeds; the city of Bobo-Dioulasso. Accompanied by a hardback book featuring the famed contemporary photographs of local photographer Sory Sanlé, it's a sumptuous work ... The music of Volta Jazz, whose deft melding of Cuban rhythms and West African harmonies, augmented by raw and fiery guitar work (...), represent some of the finest African music unearthed this year. Volta Jazz's lead vocalist Coulibaly Tidiane went on to form Dafra Star ... Less frenetic than Volta Jazz, and with a more pronouncedly African rhythmic focus ... A final disk collects the city's other notable bands, with Les Imbattables Léopard's dreamy "Bissongo Lebguinw" and [the] rock'n'roll influenced "He Ya Wannan" amongstthehighlights".

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"Upper Volta's earliest orchestras took cues from a band comprised of French colonial businessmen and Western instruments like the guitar, trumpet, and saxophone. American R&B, rhumba from the Congo, and (as the title suggests) the yé-yé of French '60s pop - the bands of Upper Volta drew on all of it. No doubt, the titan of African pop, Franco Luambo's O.K. Jazz - from the Republic of the Congo and the biggest African star on the continent - had a considerable influence on one of the earliest and most prolific bands to arise in the new country, Volta Jazz ... Their output is collected on the first disc of this set and is boisterous and simmering in equal measure, drawing on their native Bobo heritage and mixing in the many rhythms from outside their borders - most crucially, the Cuban music that found its way into the country on 78s. - "Best new reissue"".

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"Bobo Yéyé: Belle Époque in Upper Volta is a hefty, handsome box set; it's equal parts photo exhibit and musical anthology documenting the landlocked nation (now known as Burkina Faso) during the 1970s ... The 176-page hardbound book provides an introductory essay with a fine historical overview of colonial, post-colonial, and pre-revolutionary Upper Volta ... The set includes a disc each by Volta Jazz and Dafra Star. They offer rare tracks illustrating a startling crossroads where Malian and Nigerian melodies and rhythms collide with those of Ghana and Niger. Along the way, they encounter and build on Cuban rhythms, rock, and R&B sounds from the Americas. Check Volta Jazz's mind-melting "Mousso Koroba Tike." Fuzzed-up psychedelic wah-wah guitars and rock drums run headlong into highlife, accompanied by polyrhythmic hand drums and souled-out vocal harmonies. Contrast this with Dafra Star's fusion of call-and-response Malian folk and Latin-inspired funk in "Sie Koumgolo" ...[Thisbox] is one of Numero's most obsessively assembled artifacts, and given their high standards, that's saying plenty".

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