Five years into the project, with two acclaimed albums and dozens of triumphant international performances to its name, Yermande announces a thrilling new phase for this Dakar-Berlin collaboration: emphatically a giant step forward.
The group of players is boiled down to twelve for recordings, eight for shows; sessions in Dakar become steeply more focussed. ‘This time around I was better able to specify what I wanted right from the initial recording sessions in Dakar,’ says Ernestus, 'and further in the production process I took more freedom in reducing and editing audio tracks, changing MIDI data, replacing synth sounds and introducing electronic drum samples.’
Right away you hear music-making which has come startlingly into its own. Rather than submitting to the routine, discrete gradations of recording, producing and mixing, the music is tangibly permeated with deadly intent from the off. Lethally it plays a coiled, clipped, percussive venom and thumping bass against the soaring, open-throated spirituality of Mbene Seck’s singing. Plainly expert, drilled and rooted, the drumming is unpredictable, exclamatory, zinging with life. Likewise the production: intuitive and fresh but utterly attentive; limber but hefty; vividly sculpted against a backdrop of cavernous silence. Six chunks of stunning, next-level mbalax, then, funky as anything. More

Smart bomb alert! Senegalese Mbalax derivatives in approved Dub mode. More

Five years into the project, with two acclaimed albums and dozens of triumphant international performances to its name, Yermande announces a thrilling new phase for this Dakar-Berlin collaboration: emphatically a giant step forward.
The group of players is boiled down to twelve for recordings, eight for shows; sessions in Dakar become steeply more focussed. ‘This time around I was better able to specify what I wanted right from the initial recording sessions in Dakar,’ says Ernestus, 'and further in the production process I took more freedom in reducing and editing audio tracks, changing MIDI data, replacing synth sounds and introducing electronic drum samples.’
Right away you hear music-making which has come startlingly into its own. Rather than submitting to the routine, discrete gradations of recording, producing and mixing, the music is tangibly permeated with deadly intent from the off. Lethally it plays a coiled, clipped, percussive venom and thumping bass against the soaring, open-throated spirituality of Mbene Seck’s singing. Plainly expert, drilled and rooted, the drumming is unpredictable, exclamatory, zinging with life. Likewise the production: intuitive and fresh but utterly attentive; limber but hefty; vividly sculpted against a backdrop of cavernous silence. Six chunks of stunning, next-level mbalax, then, funky as anything. More

A stunning new production by Mark Ernestus, drawn from his recordings with some of Senegal’s greatest musicians — a griot clan of Sabar drummers from Kaolack in Senegal, led by Bakane Seck, with guest players and vocalists. Jeri-Jeri’s style of Mbalax is swingingly masterful — heady and hard-grooving, with highly complex, fiercely succinct poly-rhythms — an ancient-futuristic music, mesmeric but sharp as nails, super-charged with drama. Featuring the lovelorn vocals of guest Mbene Diatta Seck, Sabar traditions are fused with furious Afro-Cubanismo, hard funk-rock, and shards of high-life. Ernestus’ nasty, hypnotic, stripped dub — a Mbalax first — edges in the bass, profiles the talmbat and tungune drums, and scoops the semantics out of the vocal. More

Gawlo is a rolling, resplendent tribute to griot life — 'gawlo' is Fula for 'griot' — spear-headed by none other than Baaba Maal. Superbly expressive interjections by a trio of talking drums are especially lucid on the instrumental Version. On the flip, Lignou Mome is an exhilarating straight-no-chaser of galloping drums, bad-minded bass and layered guitar; before Ndeye Gueye wraps up proceedings with a third instrumental, propelled by terse, hypnotic figures on guitar and marimba synth. With the drum-kit unattended, octogenarian legend Doudou Ndiaye Rose features on lead sabar.

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The opener is a traditional Jola rhythm, typically fast and energetic, with tuned, talking and kit drums swarming over a kind of skeletal downhome guitar, somewhere between blues and disco. The Mboup brothers make a soaring, impassioned plea for an end to division and bloodshed in their Casamance homeland. Then a more deeply dug-in, spaced-out funk, edgily spun from a Serer rhythm, underpinning Mbene’s reflective song about parental sacrifice. ‘Sama Yaye’, ‘My Mother’. Both with full instrumental versions. More

Smart bomb alert! Senegalese Mbalax derivatives in approved Dub mode. More

A sophomore three-tracker: singer Mbene Diatta Seck in sombre consideration of street-kids and parental neglect, buoyed by propulsive drumming and trenchant bass; a second version without vocals, laying bare the poly-rhythmic interplay between marimba and percussion; and a mesmeric six-minute instrumental, with bassist Thierno Sarr grooving out on the top string of his instrument, bringing an elusive Manding flavor to the deep Mbalax mix.

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Three killers heralding the next phase of this dazzling expression of a dream Dakar-Berlin nexus. All instrumental — though the opener has snatches of singing — with the vocal versions held back for the new album, out in the Autumn. The music just gets deadlier and deadlier — harder-boiled and deeper; more focussed, confident and dubwise. Evoking the ancient cultural legacy of the griots, 'Walo Walo' is also the name of the sabar rhythm underlying the opener, which features Ibou Mbaye's percussive synth-work, Mangone Ndiaye Dieng's kit-drumming, and Bada Seck's rigorous jolts of lower-pitched Thiol drum. The 'Groove' version is tough as nails; well and truly gnarly. A tribute to the Baye Fall leader, Ndiguel Groove is a sparse, mellow interpretation of the most traditional cut on the album, showcasing Assane Ndoye Cisse’s insinuating guitar lines, Laye Lo’s super-elasticated snare-drumming, and Bada Seck playing the khine drums associated with the Baye Fall. (Short and wide; lightweight but low-pitched.) Pretty awesome. More

Jeri-Jeri is the collaboration between the renowned Berlin based producer Mark Ernestus and a griot clan of Sabar drummers from Kaolack in Senegal, led by Bkane Seck, along with guest Mbalax musicians and vocalists - including mainstays of the bands of Baaba Maal, Youssou N'Dour and other top Senegalese artists. Tip!! Aficionados of cutting edge world music and underground dance will have noted Ernestus's remixes of Afrobeat legend Tony Allen and Kinshasa rockers Konono No 1, and his co-compilation (with Honest jon's) of the critically acclaimed Shangaan Electro showcase. On the quiet though, he has become increasingly hooked on Mbalax wih its hyper-vivid Sabar and talking-drum workouts, and ultra-repetative. sick, sequencer-like Marimba synths. In early 2011 he travelled to Senegaland the Gambia in search of original recordings. Through an unlikely set of coincidences, he ended up working in the legendary Dkar studio former known as Xippi, with more than twenty of the findest musicians in the country. 800% Ndagga and Ndagga Versions present the results on two albums, splitting vocals and instrumentals; a masterful style of Mbalax, heady and hard groving, with high complex, fiercely succinct poly-rhythms; an ancient-futuristic music, mesmeric but sharp as nails, super charged with drama.

More

Jeri-Jeri is the collaboration between the renowned Berlin based producer Mark Ernestus and a griot clan of Sabar drummers from Kaolack in Senegal, led by Bkane Seck, along with guest Mbalax musicians and vocalists - including mainstays of the bands of Baaba Maal, Youssou N'Dour and other top Senegalese artists. Tip!! Aficionados of cutting edge world music and underground dance will have noted Ernestus's remixes of Afrobeat legend Tony Allen and Kinshasa rockers Konono No 1, and his co-compilation (with Honest jon's) of the critically acclaimed Shangaan Electro showcase. On the quiet though, he has become increasingly hooked on Mbalax wih its hyper-vivid Sabar and talking-drum workouts, and ultra-repetative. sick, sequencer-like Marimba synths. In early 2011 he travelled to Senegaland the Gambia in search of original recordings. Through an unlikely set of coincidences, he ended up working in the legendary Dkar studio former known as Xippi, with more than twenty of the findest musicians in the country. 800% Ndagga and Ndagga Versions present the results on two albums, splitting vocals and instrumentals; a masterful style of Mbalax, heady and hard groving, with high complex, fiercely succinct poly-rhythms; an ancient-futuristic music, mesmeric but sharp as nails, super charged with drama.

More

Jeri-Jeri is the collaboration between the renowned Berlin based producer Mark Ernestus and a griot clan of Sabar drummers from Kaolack in Senegal, led by Bkane Seck, along with guest Mbalax musicians and vocalists - including mainstays of the bands of Baaba Maal, Youssou N'Dour and other top Senegalese artists. Tip!! Aficionados of cutting edge world music and underground dance will have noted Ernestus's remixes of Afrobeat legend Tony Allen and Kinshasa rockers Konono No 1, and his co-compilation (with Honest jon's) of the critically acclaimed Shangaan Electro showcase. On the quiet though, he has become increasingly hooked on Mbalax wih its hyper-vivid Sabar and talking-drum workouts, and ultra-repetative. sick, sequencer-like Marimba synths. In early 2011 he travelled to Senegaland the Gambia in search of original recordings. Through an unlikely set of coincidences, he ended up working in the legendary Dkar studio former known as Xippi, with more than twenty of the findest musicians in the country. 800% Ndagga and Ndagga Versions present the results on two albums, splitting vocals and instrumentals; a masterful style of Mbalax, heady and hard groving, with high complex, fiercely succinct poly-rhythms; an ancient-futuristic music, mesmeric but sharp as nails, super charged with drama.

More

Jeri-Jeri is the collaboration between the renowned Berlin based producer Mark Ernestus and a griot clan of Sabar drummers from Kaolack in Senegal, led by Bkane Seck, along with guest Mbalax musicians and vocalists - including mainstays of the bands of Baaba Maal, Youssou N'Dour and other top Senegalese artists. Tip!! Aficionados of cutting edge world music and underground dance will have noted Ernestus's remixes of Afrobeat legend Tony Allen and Kinshasa rockers Konono No 1, and his co-compilation (with Honest jon's) of the critically acclaimed Shangaan Electro showcase. On the quiet though, he has become increasingly hooked on Mbalax wih its hyper-vivid Sabar and talking-drum workouts, and ultra-repetative. sick, sequencer-like Marimba synths. In early 2011 he travelled to Senegaland the Gambia in search of original recordings. Through an unlikely set of coincidences, he ended up working in the legendary Dkar studio former known as Xippi, with more than twenty of the findest musicians in the country. 800% Ndagga and Ndagga Versions present the results on two albums, splitting vocals and instrumentals; a masterful style of Mbalax, heady and hard groving, with high complex, fiercely succinct poly-rhythms; an ancient-futuristic music, mesmeric but sharp as nails, super charged with drama.

More