“Asistan”
by Etran Finatawa
(Riverboat)
This isn’t a single—just the deepest, most hypnotically
beautiful song on Desert Crossroads, which, after the new Erykah
Badu, is my favorite album of 2008 so far. Etran Finatawa, a sextet,
are from Niger (emphatically not Nigeria), they combine members of two
of the country’s nomadic ethnic groups (there are 11 altogether), and
they sing in a language I’m guessing you don’t understand—me
either. It’s discernibly foreign. But their music is so effortless that
I’m convinced anyone would respond the way I do, with the sense of
discovering something I’d been waiting for all my life without even
knowing it. Here’s a thought experiment: You awake at dawn without
prompting and the sun feels great, so does movement. It takes a minute
but you realize that you’re absolutely content. Add some unhurried
guitar and transported call-and-response vocals and you’re sort of
there.
“Reggae Is Here Once Again”
“Afro Punk Reggae (Dub)”
by Steel an’ Skin
(EM, Japan)
Too often, reissues of “lost classics” contain no such thing. And
Reggae Is Here Once Again, a somewhat pricey CD-plus-DVD from an
obscure London-based band—active from the late ’70s to (at least)
the mid-’80s and featuring members from Africa and the
Caribbean—is no bargain, not with nearly 9 of its nearly 36
minutes dedicated to “Acid Rain,” the worst piece of save-the-children
shit I ever want to hear. But these two songs are not to be believed.
Despite its title, 1979’s “Reggae Is Here Once Again” isn’t
reggae—it’s disco, with heavy calypso steel-pan lines spicing it
up nearly as much as Peter Blackman’s emotive vocal, not to mention a
heart-stopping, female-chanted breakdown. Everything about it is
perfect. Improbably, this holds nearly as true for the song’s
bare-knuckled dub mix, in which every obvious trick in the mixing-board
book (high hats slicing like funked-up scissors, a bass line boring its
way into your innards, chants and steel pans growing ever more dazzling
via extreme echo) is worked to within an inch of its life.
“Spliff Dub
(Rustie Remix)”
by Zomby
(Hyperdub)
In its original form, London producer Zomby’s “Spliff Dub” was a
rough-and-slinky dubstep track with heavy, glowering bass and a flute
motif reminiscent of nothing so much as “Torgo’s Theme” from
MST3K favorite Manos: The Hands of Fate. Refracted
through a billion little shards of synth spritz and conga clatter by
Glasgow’s Rustie, it’s as dazzlingly psychedelic as any dub, only in
far sharper focus, particularly when synth pads burst through like
sunshine midway through. 