"A highly danceable message of tolerance, hope and happiness"
Sue Wilson, Sunday Herald
Zuba's Bassa Beat is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual testament
to hope, humanity and the sheer joy of a good melody.
The Scottish based 7-piece band present their new album Allez!
"Absolutely superb" Bob Harris, BBC Radio2
Zuba wrote and rehearsed Allez! in the basement of a disused sandwich factory in the centre of Glasgow in the long, wet summer of 2004. The following recording sessions ran through to November. The main idea of recording these songs was to define, refine and capture Zuba's existing live sound - a sound borne of a fusion of different cultures but not defined by them. Zuba's Bassa Beat is global cosmopolitanism almost by accident of birth. The band members were friends, who just happened to be musicians from different parts of the world , before they were a band.
"Allez! is the most stunning mix of western and African music since Paul Simon's Graceland!
John Dingwall, Daily Record ****
Take a lead singer of Liberian griot lineage with a throat full of reggae and gospel, a Hebridean guitarist with a background in folk fingerpicking and 60s psychedelia, a Parisian percussionist who had travelled and drummed extensively in the world's Latin quarters, an Aberdonian bassist with a fixation on finding the groove that would link Peter Gabriel's world fusion and The Who, a Paisley-born jazz-inflected drummer who studied in Berklee, Boston, a Ugandan singer with a soul voice and an obsession with melancholic 70s singer-songwriters, and a Ghanaian dancer with one foot in the R'nB bag and the other dragging it away to African Gospel harmony choir recitals... stick them together in the back of a transit van for six years or so, lock them in a sandwich factory for a while and then entomb them in a smoke-filled recording studio and you have this album.
Zub's Bassa Beat is grounded on a melody and percussion driven sound - interwoven vocal harmonies vie with contrapuntal guitar lines over a backdrop of simmering rhythmic tension. Worldbeat flavours, afrobeat influences and traditional folk-based lyrical tales are basic ingredients in Zuba's global melting pot. Gritty vocals, overheating valve amps and congas struggling to maintain tension against a constant onslaught inform the sound, while the basic live essence of seven people playing and singing together creates the atmosphere. This atmosphere is a humid blend of sunshine and shadows - the weather systems of Africa and Northern Europe. Liberia, France, Uganda, Scotland, Ghana - a new alliance.
"a stunning piece or work! ...simply mind-blowing!"? Peter J Brown *****
Allez! was released on 11th June and is available now at www.zuba.co.uk www.cdbaby.com and www.iMusicStage.com
Allez! is distributed all over the web: iTunes, Napster, YahooMusic... |
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