Congotronics

Take three likembés (thumb pianos) equipped with homemade microphones built out of magnets scavenged from old junkyard cars and plugged into homemade amplifiers. Throw in a rhythm section of traditional drums, hubcap cymbals, pots, pans and wheel rims. Then run it all though a cobbled-together amplification system so you can better reach your fans over the din of traffic in rapidly urbanizing African cities like Kinshasa. What you get is a radical new vision of Bazombo trance music that uses the unwanted distortions and occasional feedback of a wildly improvised sound system to great effect. The appellation “tradi-moderne” says it all; a radical mutation of traditional African sounds into relentless, driving sonic waves connects them with the experimental aesthetics of free-form jazz, techno and lo-fi electronica.