Electronic Experiences In African Music

Paris-based producer and Afro-beat revivalist Frederic Galliano has traveled down this road before, calling on remixers to add modern electronic beats to organic African sounds, but Electronic Experiences in African Music is the first on his own Frikyiwa label. Previous collections with the Frikyiwa tag (once a "project," now a label) have been more out-of-the-box stunning, but Electronic Experiences is a bit less ambitious, and in turn takes more warming up to. Once you do, you'll find that Galliano's vision is feeling more and more natural, and in turn, more introspective. Take Luciano's sparse mix (all 14 minutes of it), or the cool textures Galliano himself lays down on "Kulu," and you'll see this is a deeper, darker Frikyiwa. Galliano has also given his guests more room than ever to reinterpret the African sounds, with Allover leaving barely any trace of the source material while Escal really dubs it up. Numerous stops and starts keep the album from being something you can dance to all the way through, but little bits of dialogue and ambient soundscapes coolly segue the tracks, making for a hang-together listen. This subdued and more abstract Frikyiwa may be harder to grasp, but anyone who feared that Galliano would one day go Enigma will now find him heading in the opposite direction. ~ David Jeffries