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.)