World Music Reviews from The Record Reviewer
Mandinka Drum Master (Village Pulse/Sterns)
by National Ballet of Senegal founder Mamdou Ly is about as exciting
as music gets. Nothing but drums. No breaks, no bridges, no breathers, just
master drummer Ly beating a freight train on the sabaro as two other musicians
play interlocking rhythms on smaller drums. Listening to this exquisitely
recorded disc through headphones puts you literally in the center of the
action--if you think your heart can take it. When one of the residents of
Warang, Senegal, where these performances were captured, first began quietly
clapping along on the initiatory "Chingo" dance, I snapped off
the cd player, convinced that my cat was rattling something on the shelf
behind me. Not this time. Obviously, the ambient noises increase the immediacy.
But the tracks are hot enough that the uncredited producer could have smothered
the microphone with a wool blanket and I'd still want to hear them.
All world music reviews by Bob Tarte from:www.technobeat.com
World Music:Africa/The Americas/Asia and the Pacific//Music Alphabetically Ordered/Anthologies/Klezmer, Polka, Indipop, Etc.