dusted

A century ago President Porfirio Diaz lamented “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” Burkina Faso has the opposite problem. The landlocked African nation is bounded by six nations, including Mali, Niger, and Ivory Coast. But since it’s isn’t close to anything that anyone wants, the nation has sustained a society in which different ethnicities and religions live together relatively harmoniously and indigenous folkways coexist with evidence of modernity. 

It’s not a complete oasis of peace and subsistence, however. Recordist and compiler Hisham Mayet’s three visits to the nation between 2014 and 2015 coincided with a quick trio of coups that toppled a long-time head of state. Even so he got to traverse the country by Land Rover, commuter bus and motorbike, snapping photos and recording music in different villages. The Music of Burkina Faso presents 17 discreet recordings, all but two of them recorded by Mayet with a single stereo microphone. 

That detail is just the first astonishing thing about this set. Mayet’s been recording music in the field for years, and he’s gotten to the point where his single microphone and recorder trumps your portable studio. Whether it’s two guys trading hunting tales over a rhythm of ngoni (a lute-like instrument made from gourds and animal skins) and metal castanets or an outdoor cabaret listening to balafons (wooden xylophones) and swilling beer, these three LPs render the music in vivid, un-distorted detail. 

In neighboring Ghana, people in the street are partying to local hip-hop and electronic dance music. If Burkina Faso’s musicians are following world trends, Mayet hasn’t included that stuff on these LPs. Instead one hears music that, if not exactly what people played a hundred years ago, feels like part of an unmolested indigenous lineage. But more remarkable than its immunity from global culture is the music’s quality. The side-long trance pieces on the first LP are seriously zoned; the vocal and string jams on LP2 rock like Bo Diddley throwing down at Otha Turner’s annual picnic; the jubilant call and response chants and massed drums on the third record invite you to lose yourself in a communal celebration.

Sublime Frequencies has come a long way from the radio captures and cassette-sourced compilations of its early years. These three LPs include sufficient annotation for you to have some idea of what you’re hearing, and Mayet’s photography is as detailed as his recording. And in a time when demand seems to be driving down the quality of vinyl pressings, these LPs are as clean-sounding as they are present.

 Bill Meyer