African Scream Contest

Coll: African Scream Contest
Reviewed by Sadie O., 1/1/09
Funky garage rock/soul/highlife from 1970’s Benin and Togo. Interesting combination of influences, very home-grown musicianship. Loveable stuff – very rootsy in a garage sense (although with obvious African roots as well), fun to listen to. I gave a wide range of stars, but all tracks are really good and deserve a listen or six.
No FCCs that I could hear (very little in English).
I must have liked 6, 7, 8, 12, and 14 best – although the last track is marred by having one of the best songs as a “hidden track”.
1. 3:56 **call and response intro, rather downtempo but highly poly-rhythmic swing with a hint of highlife. Rather alarming electric guitar solo midway.
2. 4:09 ***bass and brass-heavy midtempo shuffle with lots of psycho-garage feel, vodou handdrums.
3. 4:25 **a bit uptempo with a bit of Famous Flames and maybe a hint of Soul Makossa, nice squeaky sax, and vocals in English.
4. 3:23 ***uptempo with psychedelic farfisa and bass. Gnarly!
5. 3:27 **very swingy and groovy, with lots of keyboards, as well as chant and call & response vocals – trance-inducing in a way. Feel the orishas yet?
6. 2:56 ****uptempo bounce with electric guitars and screams. Yooooowwww!
7. 3:22 *****totally soulful, bass-heavy strut, funky vocals in English.
8. 5:00 ***funky soul strut, great bass and rhythm, call & response vocals in French.
9. 3:05 ****great uptempo garage-soul feel – lots of energy and near misses in pitch, and lots of screams.
10. 9:53 **pretty highlife swing, interesting mix of plinky instruments and brass. Quite long – call & response vocals don’t even start til 3 minutes along. Fine trumpet solo towards end of number.
11. 4:20 **swingy call & response with shakers and quite odd bass/guitar sound.
12. 3:01 ****funky yet deranged uptempo strut – afrobeat sound with strong bass and guitar.
13. 10:08 ***uptempo yet relaxed groove with lots of handdrums, very African-sounding vocals, in French. Farfisa solo!
14. 7:46 (2 tracks) ****funky, swingy, Afro-Cuban groove, totally discordant but loveable horns. Give em all the points for attitude and inherent funkiness, nothing for slickness cause they ain’t got none. At 9:13 (4:08 from end) there’s some talking in French; last 3:30 is a fine garage soul/rocker with lots of grunts and screams.