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Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force
Khadim
Ndagga
Whoa this record is totally killer.
Intensely concentrated, but with a fresh spontaneity; super-charged with expressivity.
The singing is riveting, diva-esque; the mbalax rhythms are dazzling.
At every turn there are sensational, thrilling injections of Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound.
Hotly recommended; it’s a must.
Khadim is a stunning reconfiguration of the Ndagga Rhythm Force sound. The instrumentation is radically pared down. The guitar is gone; the concatenation of sabars; the drum-kit. Each of the four tracks hones in on just one or two drummers; otherwise the sole recorded element is the singing; everything else is programmed. Synths are dialogically locked into the drumming. Tellingly, Ernestus has reached for his beloved Prophet-5, a signature go-to since Basic Channel days, thirty years ago. Texturally, the sound is more dubwise; prickling with effects. There is a new spaciousness, announced at the start by the ambient sounds of Dakar street-life. At the microphone, Mbene Diatta Seck revels in this new openness: mbalax diva, she feelingly turns each of the four songs into a discrete dramatic episode, using different sets of rhetorical techniques. The music throughout is taut, grooving, complex, like before; but more volatile, intuitive and reaching, with turbulent emotional and spiritual expressivity.
Not that Khadim represents any kind of break. Its transformativeness is rooted in the hundreds upon hundreds of hours the Rhythm Force has played together. Nearly a decade has passed since Yermande, the unit’s previous album. Every year throughout that period — barring lockdowns — the group has toured extensively, in Europe, the US, and Japan. With improvisation at the core of its music-making, each performance has been evolutionary, as it turns out heading towards Khadim. “I didn’t want to simply continue with the same formula,” says Ernestus. “I preferred to wait for a new approach. Playing live so many times, I wanted to capture some of the energy and freedom of those performances.” Though several members of the touring ensemble sit out this recording — sabar drummers, kit-drummer, synth-player — their presence abides in the structure and swing of the music here…
Rock-steady, slow-burning, hard funk, a kind of fatback Mbalax, in no mood to be messed with, with full vocal and instrumental versions; plus two vivid sketches, talking drums to the fore.
A traditional Jola rhythm, with tuned, talking and kit drums swarming across scraps of guitar and the Mboups singing; then a more deeply dug-in, spaced-out funk, spun from a Serer rhythm. With full instrumentals.
Three killers heralding the latest 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 album.
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.
Five years into the project, Yermande announced a thrilling new phase for this Dakar-Berlin collaboration; a giant step forward.
The group of players was 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.
A rolling, resplendent tribute to griot life — ‘gawlo’, Fula for ‘griot’ — spear-headed by none other than Baaba Maal. Expressive interjections by a trio of talking drums are especially lucid on the instrumental.
A next-level three-tracker, intense and roiling, featuring a mesmeric six-minute instrumental, with Thierno Sarr grooving out on the top string of his bass, adding an elusive Manding flavour to the deep Mbalax mix.
A stunning new production by the Rhythm And Sound ace, drawn from his recording sessions with a griot clan of Sabar drummers from Kaolack, led by Bakane Seck, with guest players and vocalists.
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