Electronic beats and dub effects put a heady, psychedelic spin on traditional Ugandan Royal Court music.
In the early 1980s, the meeting of African music with electronics often made for thrilling hybrids, like Cameroonian singer Francis Bebey’s New Track and Zazou/Bikaye/Cy 1’s visionary Congolese-Belgian masterpiece Noir Et Blanc. Today, there’s no shortage of such exchanges. In the past year alone, a number of heady synergetic blends have cropped up across the African diaspora: Mikael Seifu and the 1432 R label’s Ethiopian-laced dance music; the LA musician Sudan Archives' digitally enhanced fiddle; Malian singer Oumou Sangaré's merger of ngoni with synth-pop; Luka Productions' West African-inflected New Age; and various recordings on Uganda's Nyege Nyege Tapes label.
One of that label’s most electrifying releases comes from that country’s legendary electro acholi singer Otim Alpha, and he is also part of the group Ennanga Vision, alongside former Ugandan royal musician and multi-instrumentalist Albert Ssempeke and London producer Jesse Hackett. Hackett is no stranger to border-crossing ensembles, having brought together Kenyan players and British beats as a member of the Owiny Sigoma Band. This album posits the project as “deconstructed Royal Court music from the forgotten kingdoms of Buganda,” though it takes a while for the participants to settle on an identity and get to the music’s most fruitful moments.
Ssempeke’s talents on a wide array of traditional instrumentation stand out across turns on the ngindidi (fiddle), amadinada (xylophone), kiganda harp, and endere flute. He brings bounce and nimble melodic turns to the electro blips of “Otim’s War” and elegance to “Abbanna Kange (Children of My Father).” The album’s trickiest beat comes on “Kampala Auto Chase,” in which Alpha’s voice is slurred and stretched out as Ssempeke’s instrumentation weaves in and out of the programmed drums; “New Sunshine” pairs an agitated bowed ngindidi with slow, bucolic electronic organ chords, pulling in two directions at once.
The album’s most overtly pop moments also wind up sounding like the chintziest. The hyperactive arpeggios and claps that power “Like a Football” resemble Nozinja’s dizzying Shangaan electro productions, but the sticky-sweet synth sounds lack the South African artist's force. When Ennanga Vision drifts towards the slower, stranger end of the sound spectrum, the results drastically improve. Alpha’s growls are digitally garbled and set against arcade bleeps on “Amadinda Eyeball,” while Ssempeke adds a graceful counterpoint to Hackett’s electronic noises with garlands of xylophone and harp. “Killing Ghosts” again draws on the sound of the ngindidi, though Hackett now slathers on spacious dub effects as it bounces around a gurgling hand drum pattern, and the dubby, distorted processing of the voices makes for a satisfying, gooey sound. While “All This Blue” has a similar timbral palette, the overall effect feels decidedly more ethereal even if it’s more uptempo.
Most beguiling of all is the album’s closer, “Jaja (Grandmother).” While some of the album’s other lyrical moments fall flat, there’s a sense of restraint here on this beatless track, the vocals cloaked in echo. It’s suggestive of a sublime space that pays tribute both to our elders and—thanks to an effective use of children’s laughter—also anticipates the future.
