KOKOKO! - Liboso

Africa fever spreads like a tropical contagion, these days ever more strictly black-oriented. Antibalas, Heliocentrics, United Vibrations, Sons Of Kemet, just to name the most conspicuous examples: whether it's afrobeat, Ethio-jazz or some other First-Third World hybrid, the colonizers are looking with ever-growing obsession at the rhythms of their former(?) subjects (music that, incidentally, is far more Western-centric than commonly believed, given that the funk-leaning strain dominates over the "tribal" one). Fresh and engaging reworkings, yet ones that most of the time don't stray far from the original models, chasing the fashionable utopia of emic art, that somewhat hypocritical "from the point of view of the oppressed" stance meant to compensate them for what was stolen and absolve us of the "guilt of being white", as those pampered, well-off Minor Threat boys used to sing.

Given these premises, it's curious to note how the new African avant-garde seems not to care in the least about being the living caricature of an identity attributed to it from outside, preferring instead to pounce on the music we export and take it apart however they please, with a boldness our own lousy ethno-entomology could never allow itself. Striking, in this sense, are the Congolese KOKOKO! (an onomatopoeia for knocking on the head of someone asleep, almost an update of the unforgettable Death's "Keep On Knocking"): discovered in the slums of Kinshasa by French producer débruit (yes, even in the age of disintermediation a little push from the white man is apparently still needed...), these hooligans in worker's overalls à la Devo do lo-fi their own way, building their bizarre instruments out of scavenged materials, a tradition among the noblest (Harry Partch, Moondog, Robert Rutman, Z'EV, up to latter-day Tom Waits) recast in a Third World key, a hymn to ingenious recycling against the aggressiveness of throwaway culture, in the manner of fellow "Congotronics" citizens Konono N°1.

The result is an exciting post-electro-world-funk with multiple echoes (23 Skidoo, Liquid Liquid, ESG, but also a hypothetical cyber-Santana from a rotting shantytown, perhaps remixed by James Holden), as lopsided as a photo by Miroslav Tichý or a composition by Lonnie Holley, "ugly and nasty" in the ostentatious poverty of its raw materials (even in its use of electronics, built on scrappy samples and cut-rate tones) yet exquisitely sharp in its witty primitivist détournements. After two two-track mini-EPs and a sold-out European tour, the five tracks of "Liboso" mark their arrival in the stable of Britain's Transgressive label (Foals, SOPHIE, Cosmo Sheldrake, among others). The title might be translated as "beyond", and the music, elusive and adventurous, lives up to the promise.

It opens with the filamentous Dead Can Dance echoes of the instrumental "Blvd Lumumba" (the road leading to Kinshasa, a perfect introduction to their geo-musical world), immediately followed by the unleashed kuduro of "Azo Toke" which, with a bit more promotion and a bit less interference, could have had half the world dancing.

If “Affaire A Mbongo” (which translates as “money trouble”) is their own version of I Zimbra, the hypnotic “L.O.V.E.” is a lesson in freeze-dried craftsmanship (the instrumentation, we're told, consists of a few tomato tins, a car radio, a two-string guitar and a finger tapping on a cable, with a guest feature from fellow countrywoman Rachel Nyangombe to sweeten things up), marrying it all to a dub haze straight out of Mark Stewart. It closes in style with “Longola Ye Kupe”, which, caught between worldbeat leanings reminiscent of Gang Gang Dance and an Orbital-style coda, wouldn't be out of place being called “gnawa-techno”.

While we wait for their full-length debut, expected next summer, “Liboso” is a dazzling anthem to imagination in the face of scarce means, once again proving the truth of Dirtmusic's claim: “The world is getting smaller”.

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15/12/2018