Echoes of Africa

"Despite fifteen years and numerous personnel differences between them, The Invisible Session and Echoes Of Africa are cut from the same cloth. Listening to the music is like walking on clouds. But the project also has feet on the ground. Bentality's telling-it-like-it-is rap on the new album's "Hearing The Call," which was written before the murder of George Floyd ignited the Black Lives Matter movement (Echoes Of Africa was recorded in autumn 2019), is powerful and prescient stuff. Elsewhere the album's references to Afrobeat, Ethio-jazz, funk and reggae keep things groovalicious. Altogether, Echoes Of Africa is an enticing blend of spit and polish".

Læs anmeldelse

"The group is based around the core collaboration between producer and vibraphonist Luciano Cantone and multi-instrumentalist Gianluca Petrella, expanded to feature band members and guests from Italy, Finland, Ethiopia, the US and Gambia ... This is Afrobeat meets Ethio-jazz ... The footprints of [Fela Kuti and Mulatu Astatke] are everywhere on this album, which is none the worse for it. Yoruba rhythms drive on swirling dub-style Habesha atmospheres; chunky horn sections blast between Nigeria and Ethiopia in their melodies. Other styles sneak in there occasionally: there are moments when it bursts through into fullfrontal jazz, there's fleeting flavours of hip-hop production and Benjamin 'Bentality' Paavilainen's half-spoken poetry is a treat in the two tracks he's featured on, sparking inescapable comparisons to Gil Scott-Heron. Ethio-Afrobeat is not exactly untrod ground, but The Invisible Session do it as well as any I've heard".