Ernie's African Odyssey Part 51 - Tunisia

We have made it to Tunisia, a country I will be visiting for the first time in real life in January. I have a bit of free time and Tunis is only three hours flying time from London, so I thought I would pop over and have a nose around.

The music we have for you today fits the description "interesting and varied". It has taken a fair bit of digging to find the variety, as most of the Tunisian music available on Bandcamp and the like is death metal and rather dull electronica. But I think it was worth it.

We will commence proceedings with a track from the only Tunisian CD in my collection, "Sans Visa" by Ouled Jouini. They were formed in 1983 under the leadership of Farhat Jouini and this album came out in 2005. 

Beyond that I don't have much to tell you - the sleevenotes on the CD are so minimal they don't even name the other members of the band. There is no sign of any new music since 2005 but they pop up on lots of 'Tunisian Hits of the 1990s' compilations, so my guess is that was when they were in their pomp.

Perhaps the most interesting of today's artists is Badiâa Bouhrizi, who also performs as Neysatu (in which capacity she contributed to "Adrian Sherwood Presents: Dub No Frontiers", one of my favourite albums of 2022, and previously to the On-U compilation "Pay It All Back Vol 7"). She describes her style as “the new sound of Northern Africa”, and as a mixture of local traditional and classical Arabic music with a touch of jazz, funk, neo-soul, electronica and reggae.

The chosen track comes from her album "KahruMusiqa", the first music she has released under her own name. Although the album only came out last year it is actually a collection of home recordings she made in the 2000s. Many of the tracks are settings of poems by various female Arab writers.

Another distinctive but very different female voice next. Mara'a Borkan are a band. Their name means Volcano Woman. That's all I've got. They make a blistering racket though and the singer will knock your socks off. This track is on one of two releases put out through 'a world divided' (all trendy lower case) in 2020, although the band had previously released it themselves in 2015. 

You may feel in the need of something a bit smoother after that to calm you down. I am happy to oblige with this groovy tune from Carthago, a band formed in the late 1970s when two of the funkiest combos in old Tunis town (Marhaba Band and the oddly named Dalton) teamed up to ride the disco wave. You can find this on an EP issued by the Habibi Funk label, whose catalogue has featured many times already on the tour. 

Bringing the funkiness forward in time is Ammar 808, aka Sofyann Ben Youssef. He was apparently "the sonic mastermind behind the Tunisian sensation Bargou 08" (no, me neither). In 2018 he teamed up with a few singers from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia with the intention of giving traditional North African music a boot up the arse. The resulting album was called "Maghreb United" and the featured vocalist on this track is his fellow Tunisian Chen Hassan Tej.

Which brings us to Chedly Taghouti, "un acteur et chanteur diplômé de l'Institut d'Art Dramatique de Tunis, a exploré la synergie entre musique et théâtre". Which is all well and good but that isn't why he is here. It is because earlier this year he put out an MAR record called "Give Energy", enabling us to tick that particular box.  

"Fi Bali Derta" - Ouled Jouini

"Bledi" - Badiâa Bouhrizi

"Chnowa Kont Tetsa Wer" - Mara'a Borkan

"Alech" - Carthago

"Ichki Lel Bey" - Ammar 808 (featuring Cheb Hassen Tej)

"Sayeb Lahchich" - Chedly Taghouti

When we were in Tanzania recently we kicked off the videos with a lad from Zanzibar who had a fair bit of success after moving to England and changing his name. Following that example, we commence today with the former Elli Robert Fitoussi, all the way from Menzel Bourguiba.

Twinkle Time

Heavenly shades of night are falling. Its Twinkle Time. Out of the mist Norman Grant's voice is calling. Its Twinkle Time.

Come with me way back to 1983 to enjoy a couple of tracks from The Twinkle Brothers album "Burden Bearers". By this point the original band of brothers were no more and it was Mr. Grant with some hired hands. But what hands they were - Flabba Holt, Style Scott, Steely in his pre-Cleevie days, Dean Fraser, The Mad Professor and more. No wonder the record sounds so good.

"Jah Jah Gonna Get You" - The Twinkle Brothers

"Unemployment" - The Twinkle Brothers

Other Twinkles are available.

Skinny And Sam

New music alert. There are a couple of records released this week that have been getting heavy rotation on my metaphorical turntable since I was sent them by the nice folks in Promoland a few weeks back.

First up is "Easygoing", the new album by one Skinny Dyck (his real name is Ryan Dyck so I guess he selected the Skinny sobriquet to preempt the obvious jokes). Mr Dyck is a countryish singer from Alberta who makes a charming sound. The album comes out today. Start with "Can't Change The Colour Of Your Eyes" (see below) and work out from there.

The other is "Swimming", the lead single and title track of the upcoming album by Sam Moss. The album itself is not released until early next year but the single came out on Tuesday. In my humble opinion it does not fully prepare you for quite how good the album is. It is a magical thing. One for any fans of Bonny Light Horseman and early Hiss Golden Messenger.

To encourage you to investigate their respective back catalogues as well as the new records here is a track apiece from Skinny's "Palace Waiting" (2022) and Sam's "Neon" (2018).

"Jackson Hole" - Skinny Dyck

"Neon" - Sam Moss

Ernie's African Odyssey Part 50 - Togo

Fifty up, only five Togo after to go.

Apologies, that should read "only five to go after Togo". But we are in no hurry, so let's linger longer in Lomé and take in the scene.

And there is no better place to start than with one of the hottest bands around, one that I have raved about in these pages previously - Nana Benz do Togo. I was completely blown away by their debut album "Ago" when I discovered it while visiting Paris last year, and then again when I saw them live in London back in the summer. That evening they closed their set with this track and sent us all off smiling.

Next we go back in time to meet Bella Bellow, a sweet-voiced songbird whose surname is the opposite of onomatopoeia (I don't know whether there is a word for that but Rol probably does). You will find absolutely no bellowing on this single from the late 1960s.

Bella's light shone briefly but brightly, becoming a household name all across West Africa and playing at venues like the Paris Olympia and the Maracana Stadium in Rio before tragically dying in a car crash in 1973 aged just 28. 

Much less celebrated at the time were Orchestre Abass, who released a couple of blistering singles in 1972 and then promptly disappeared from view. They remained hidden until a few years ago when the good folks at Analog Africa did some high quality crate-digging and put out all their known recordings on "De Bassari Togo". There is plenty of bellowing on this one.

Even in their prime the Abass boys were not exactly Togo's go to guys, but there were plenty of contenders for that title. You can find many of them duking it out on Hot Casa's excellent "Togo Soul 70" compilation, including Aimé Orchis Mathey. I haven't been able to find out anything about Mr Mathey so can't back up the statement that he was a go to guy, but listening to that guitar you have to think he must have been.

Edging forward to the 1980s we find Itadi K. Bonney, another Hot Casa rediscovery. This track comes from his self-titled 1983 album but going by the cover it is his 1977 album you really want to get. Hard to believe that by 1990 this Togolese Leo Sayer lookalike would be forced to flee the country after his lyrics upset the ruling Gnassingbé dynasty (founded 1967 and still in charge today).

We will leap ahead to the present day to meet up with Brussels based Togolese trumpeter and composer Daniel Dzidzonu and his funky band. This is the opening track from his 2019 "Walls Of Wonder" album which also includes his tribute to Hugh Masekela, a video of which you can find tucked away in the bottom corner of his website.

Finally the coveted MAR slot, which this time out is claimed by Sol X-Ray (real name the less catchy Eklu-Natey Tétévi Salomon). While he is not quite the man of mystery that Mr Mathey is the details of his past career and present whereabouts are sketchy. There has been no sign of him on social media or YouTube since 2019 and we can only hope that he is still with us and chilling out somewhere. This track can be found on the 2017 Pan-African MAR compilation "Rise Up Afreeka".

"Amina" - Nana Benz do Togo

"Bouyélélé" - Bella Bellow

"Haka Dunia" - Orchestre Abass

"Senye Ye Na" - Aimé Orchis Mathey

"Inye" - Itadi K. Bonney

"Va MiDzo" - Daniel Dzidzonu

"Gbede" - Sol X-Ray

Rooms With Views

A little photography exhibition for you today. It's not a patch on any of JM's marvellous monthly spectaculars, but like them it does have a theme.

During the course of my travels for international espionage unspecified work and pleasure I have been lucky enough to stay in rooms that have views that might politely be described as unconventionally attractive. About ten years ago I started photographing them and posting them all on social media.

Last month I was in Belfast and racked up the 100th view of the series, so I thought I would mark the milestone by sharing some with you. We'll start with the view that brought up the century and follow it with some personal favourites from Paris, Guimaraes and Genoa respectively.

In the unlikely event you want to admire all 100 (now 101) you can find them over at Flickr.

"A Room With A View" - Noel Coward

"Beautiful View" - Ron Sexsmith

"A View" - Sarabeth Tucek

"Taking The View" - Thad Cockrell

Two Little Axes

Tucked away in the bowels of Wednesday's post was a reference to a visit I paid to Flashback Records in London's fashionable Essex Road last weekend.

As well as the album by Hukwe Zawose that I featured then I also found two albums by Little Axe in the bargain bin. Based on the assumption that any album on On-U is worth risking £1 on I snapped them up.

The albums in question were "The Wolf That House Built" (1994) and "Hard Grind" (2002). Here is a track from each of them.

"Wake The Town" - Little Axe

"Tight Like That" - Little Axe

My original plan for the videos was to have two videos of songs about axe-wielding, Bob Marley's "Small Axe" representing the supporters and Baris Manco's "Nick The Chopper" the opponents. Baris duly delivered.

But I couldn't find any videos of Bob doing "Small Axe" so I tried looking for the Twinkle Brothers' "Axeman" instead. Again no luck but bizarrely YouTube's algorithm selected the second video below as the fifth best match. And who am I to argue with the algorithms.

Ernie's African Odyssey Part 49 - Tanzania

Its T time on our tour. T for Tanzania to be precise. 

We have had some highs and lows on the odyssey but none to match Tanzania which has the distinction of being the site of Africa's highest and lowest points (the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro and the floor of Lake Tanganyika respectively). And there are lots of good things in between.

Those good things include many groovy tunes. The music of Tanzania has perhaps tended to be a bit overshadowed by that of its neighbours DR Congo, Kenya and Zambia, but it deserves to be heard. So let's crack on!

We will start with the greatest band that never was, or at least the greatest name for a band that never was. Back in 1975 the Vijana Jazz Band were riding high in the charts and were very keen to get their new material on the market, but that enthusiasm was not shared by their record company who wanted to finish milking the current singles first. 

So the band popped over to Nairobi, recorded some tracks and found someone who was able to persuade the record company it was a new band and get the record released that way. The name of that imaginary band? Why, Koka Koka Sex Battalion, of course. You can find the Sex Battalion tracks plus other Vijana Jazz Band releases on this 2011 Sterns compilation.

You will have spotted that the Battalion boys were heavily influenced by the rumba rhythms rolling over the border from DRC. The same is true for many other Tanzanian bands from the 1970s to the present day. One such example is Twanga Pepeta International (sometimes to be seen without the International and sometimes called the African Stars Band, making them almost as confusing as the Sex Battalion). Formed in 1994, the shiny little number is from their 2006 album "Password".

Not everyone was lured by the shimmering guitar sound back then in the 1970s though. Some like Sunburst looked further west and south, taking their inspiration from the funky sounds emanating out of Nigeria etc and the Zambian rock scene. 

They were only around for a few years but made some great music in that time. In 2016 Strut records released their complete recordings on a compilation called "Ave Africa". The track I have chosen was originally a B-side in 1973. Those were the days when they still had proper B-sides.

All the acts featured so far hail from mainland Tanzania, so we should probably pop over to Zanzibar to see what is happening there. Well, Siti Muharam for one, whose 2020 album "Siti Of Unguja" is worth buying for the cover alone. Her great-grandmother, Siti Binti Saad, was the first East African singer to be recorded nearly 100 years ago and was credited with popularising taarab music. Siti Muharam made this album to help to preserve her legacy and does so magnificently.

Sticking with current female performers we follow that with the title track from "Maisha", the debut album from the Zawose Queens released last year. The Queens are sisters Pendo and Leah Zawose and this is their take on the traditional polyrhythms and polyphonic singing of the Gogo people based mainly in the Dodola region of the country. I refuse to bow to demands to refer to them as Gogo girls.

Like Siti Muharam, the Queens have an impressive musical lineage. Their late grandfather was Hukwe Zawose, the most famous exponent of the Gogo musical tradition. I had not originally planned to include him in this post, but when I paid a visit to Flashback Records in Islington last weekend I found a copy of his album "Chibite" in the bargain bin. I took it as a sign.

"Chibite" came out in 1996 on Real World and is pretty much a one man show. Dr Zawose handles vocals, thumb piano, fiddle, flute and ankle bells and is helped out only by Charles Zawose (who I think is his son) on harmonies and all-important second thumb piano.

And so to the MAR slot. This time it goes to dAbo Mtanzania. I am not sure why he chooses to capitalise the A - perhaps he was named after former Manfred Mann singer Mike d'Abo? Whatever the reason, here is is with a track from last year's "Undisputed" album. 

"Ujirani Mwema" - Koka Koka Sex Battalion

"Umasikini" - Twanga Pepeta International

"Black Is Beautiful" - Sunburst

"Alaminadura" - Siti Muharam

"Maisha" - The Zawose Queens

"Chilumi" - Hukwe Zawose

"Uncle Mapepe" - dAbo Mtanzania

We will start off the videos with one of the more obscure Tanzanian performers after which I will try to pander to your more populist tastes. So please all join me in giving a warm 27 Leggies welcome to Farrokh Bulsara from Stone Town in Zanzibar.