Kasai Allstars: In The 7th Moon, The Chief Turned Into A Swimming Fish And Ate The Head Of His Enemy By Magic

The Congotronics series first highlighted
the amazing vitality of modern Congolese music with the 2005 debut disc from
Konono No. 1, which created something utterly mesmerizing by adding modern
amplification and electronic distortion to traditional instruments like the
likembe thumb piano. The third Congotronics installment broadens the
scope. Central Africa's Democratic Republic Of The Congo is so huge it could
fit Western Europe inside it, and its musical diversity is correspondingly
vast. Kasai Allstars is a supergroup of 25 performers from five bands that each
come from a different ethnic group in the central region of Kasai, with
different languages, a history of strife, and artistic traditions considered
incompatible until the musicians and dancers got together to try fusing them.
As with Konono, the Allstars build on a base of traditional tribal music that
was nearly destroyed by the advent of Western missionaries, and aim to not only
rejuvenate the old traditions, but set them free in the vastly expanded sonic
playground that amplification provides. The result is even more appealing than
Konono, drawing on likembes, the buzzing and drum-like tam tam, electric
guitars, and half a dozen vocalists to create hypnotic, rich, complex
polyrhythmic wonders. It sounds ancient and otherworldly, even psychedelic.
(That eye-catching album title, by the way, comes from a traditional Songye
tribal dance performed by a new chief the day he takes the throne.)