Ebo Taylor:
My Love and Music:
Mr Bongo:
LP/CD:
Out Now:
Ghanaian producer, arranger, band-leader and guitarist Ebo Taylor has been something of a catalyst for Ghana's music scene in a similar fashion to Nigeria's Fela Kuti, minus the hero worship of like-minded music curators, journos and historians.
My Love and Music is Taylor's 1976 debut album and is the focus of this timely Mr Bongo repress, some 40 years after the original. To herald this album as anything less than joyous would be churlish - it is simply wonderful.
With all the influences of Afrique-pop, calypso, ska and the early throes of funk, My Love and Music cannot and doesn't fail. Most might avoid the lengthiest tracks (you only have four to choose from) but the title track is soporific, heady and warm like a basement jam, while the epic Odofo Nnyi Ekyir Biara is like a crazed voodooed Afrobeat carnival hoedown that doesn't let up for nigh-on a quarter of an hour. It's an epiphany of Latin American and African styles delivered with some fist-heavy organ and glorious harmonies that frankly shame what comes out of expensive studios nowadays.
Ebo Taylor is currently in his '80s having issued a few recent recordings via the coveted Strut stable - check his faultless Appia Kwa Bridge set from 2012 - but deserves to be recognized as much as any other Realworld or Sterns artists of recent years. With My Love and Music and its attendant frivolities, you seriously won't find a better party-orientated vinyl reissue this year.
★★★★★★★★★★ (yep, that's a 10)
My Love and Music:
Mr Bongo:
LP/CD:
Out Now:
My Love and Music is Taylor's 1976 debut album and is the focus of this timely Mr Bongo repress, some 40 years after the original. To herald this album as anything less than joyous would be churlish - it is simply wonderful.
With all the influences of Afrique-pop, calypso, ska and the early throes of funk, My Love and Music cannot and doesn't fail. Most might avoid the lengthiest tracks (you only have four to choose from) but the title track is soporific, heady and warm like a basement jam, while the epic Odofo Nnyi Ekyir Biara is like a crazed voodooed Afrobeat carnival hoedown that doesn't let up for nigh-on a quarter of an hour. It's an epiphany of Latin American and African styles delivered with some fist-heavy organ and glorious harmonies that frankly shame what comes out of expensive studios nowadays.
Ebo Taylor is currently in his '80s having issued a few recent recordings via the coveted Strut stable - check his faultless Appia Kwa Bridge set from 2012 - but deserves to be recognized as much as any other Realworld or Sterns artists of recent years. With My Love and Music and its attendant frivolities, you seriously won't find a better party-orientated vinyl reissue this year.
★★★★★★★★★★ (yep, that's a 10)