Mark
Ernestus meets Ben Zabo – Wari Vo Dubwise/Dana Dubwise (Glitterbeat Records)
12” Vinyl
It’s always
nice to hear of a new record label, and,
even nicer to hear the first release and anticipate great things to come.
Glitterbeat
Records claim to bring us ‘music from Africa and beyond’. An exciting proposition particularly when
music from the continent is becoming more and more acceptable as mainstream
listening.
The first Glitterbeat
release (limited to 500 copies) sees Mark Ernestus remix two tracks from Ben
Zabo’s eponymously titled debut album of Afro-rock and effortlessly combine
them with dub overtones to create the ‘dubwise’ remixes.
For almost
ten years, Ernestus has honed in on African music from his electronic past and
collaborated with Jeri-Jeri from Senegal last year. Zabo hails from the ethnic group, Bwa, from
Mali and created Afro-beat that was so popular it appeared in African albums of the year for 2012.
Wari
Vo starts instantly with a dub effect from the opening brass
accompaniment. Voices echo in and out,
and occasional drum rolls enter over a frenetic, driving beat. As an admirer of both African music and dub,
this is a great track put together really well.
A perfect recipe for a unique danceable dub track.
Flip
side, Dana, starts with hi-hat symbols and a slower beat to its predecessor, a
lovely snippet of a great funky guitar riff and dub voices again. There’s an brilliant intermittent bass note
that grooves with the vocals and sounds not unlike the trademark bass of early
Tackhead.
Both
tracks are a style that is new and refreshing and has the prospect of becoming
very very popular. Roll on Summer when
Zebo releases his "Democratie" EP!
8/10
Find
out more about Mark Ernestus here and
follow him on Twitter here. Ben Zabo can
be found here and his tweets can be read here.
No comments:
Post a Comment