About a month ago, producer/author Joe Boyd came to Chicago to promote his new book. And The Roots Of Rhythm is, among other things, a meditation upon the world-music market that arose in tandem with the compact disc. As has been his wont at every point in his career, Boyd got there early with his Hannibal label, whose Cuban collection paved the way for Buena Vista Social Club.
During the Chicago Q&A, an audience member asked Boyd if he tried to find the “best example” of a musical style. Not at all, Boyd said; he looked for performances that electrified him, then went on to note the peculiarities of preference shared by him and his customers. Weaned on mid-20th-century rock, blues, folk and jazz, he and they were, by the 1980s, looking for the elements of tradition and the spirit of live performance that the decade’s production methods had sucked out of popular music. Boyd did not say whether he’s still listening to new tunes, but if he is, he really ought to check out Tsapiky! Modern Music From Southwest Madagascar. It’s right up his alley.
Tsapiky! is named for a musical style that’s been popular in recent decades in the Africa-facing southern corner of Madagascar, an island in the Indian Ocean. It’s the preferred soundtrack for extended celebrations that people there throw around transitional events. If you’re getting married or buried, it’s common to have a band hoist some loudspeakers onto the roof of your truck and get the outdoor party rolling. Heard for the first time, it sounds a bit like Congolese soukous being played through a megaphone. It has that style’s open-ended dance grooves and sprightly melodies, but it’s decidedly lower budget. A typical tsapiky band will have a drum kit, a bassist laying down bulbous, intermittent pulses and an electric guitarist and female vocalist who both sound like they’re bent on blowing out the sound system. When it comes to distortion, this style is quite equal to the Sahel guitar scene that gave the world Bombino and Etran De L’Aïr.
Take “Sinjake Panambola” (“dance of the rich”), for example. Two singers lob phrases at each other while the rhythm section hurtles upward of 200 beats per minute, and a guitarist named Drick tosses out one raw, jubilant phrase after another, pausing periodically alongside the rest of the band so that everyone can grab one or two breaths. It sounds like one mad party, but it was recorded at a funeral. Mahafaly Mihisa’s “Fanoigna” (“heated debate”) sustains an even more breakneck pace. The liner notes indicate that it switches between three traditional rhythms, but to the non-Malagasy listener, it might sound like one hurtling charge.
You don’t really need to know anything about this music to enjoy it, but an appreciation for in-the-red sonics and an air of abandon sure helps. [Sublime Frequencies]
—Bill Meyer
