Now (2015)
12 tracks, 50 minutes
Bandcamp ∙ Spotify ∙ iTunes
I opened my review of Now by Electro Bamako in the dearly departed fRoots Magazine with ‘Phwoar! Now this is an album,’ and that much really cannot be disputed (although you’re welcome to try).
The premise is simple: it’s wassoulou music from the streets of Bamako, represented here by the voice and kamelengoni harp, meets underground club music, courtesy of Damien Traini and Marc Minell from France. As a fusion, this one ain’t big and ain’t clever. It doesn’t break any major boundaries, and nothing about it particularly leaps out as a surprising, first-of-its-kind, turn up for the books. When you go into this album, you know what you’re going to get, even right down to the band’s name.
But it sure is funky. Music doesn’t have to innovate wildly at every turn to still be a bloody good time, and I feel like this album exemplifies that. Maybe the artists involved wouldn’t necessarily agree with me, and maybe they’d be put out at that assessment, but a good album is a good album, and Now is. It does everything right. Every groove it layers up is interesting and full of vibe, the Malian element is pronounced and treated with dignity while still chopping it and changing it to suit the transcontinental context, and it has beats for days. If you got rid of the three superfluous ‘radio edit’ versions at the end (the only thing I can fault of the album), it’s also a tight 40 minutes – just long enough for a satisfying time without dragging.
Now won’t create a new futuristic way of telling the time, but it’s definitely an album you can set your watch by. This is one to enjoy with no complications and no hesitations. And, after all, isn’t that what we all want from our music listening experiences, most of the time?
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