Here's my second favorite album of the year: Congotronics 2. While it's not as startling and unexpected as last year's Konono No. 1 CD, it's still every bit as amazing. I'm of two minds about much of the critical response to both CDs. The use of DIY instruments and amplification does give the music a sound quite unlike more familiar African styles. References to krautrock, Lee Perry and various forms of electronic dance music are not unexpected. I certainly am not saying that reviews of congotronics bands/music shouldn't reference that stuff. But I read enough and I'm starting to wonder why so few mentions of the fact that this is African music. It starts to seem like critics can't get their mind around the fact that African musicians have created such a new sound. Yet it's so rooted in the styles of the Congo, in the drumming, the beats, the trance traditions. I think if you lose that in the buzz & rumble, then you're really not understanding what's going on. And you'll end up making some absurd comparison to Aphex Twin.

but maybe that's just me

Anyway, things are getting very raggedy around several edges. I may be awol for a few days. Again, talk or drink amongst yrselves