Analog Africa - Dur Dur of Somalia - Volume 1, Volume 2 & Previously Unreleased Tracks
Triple LP in Gatefold De Luxe
Printed liner notes and pictures
When Analog Africa founder Samy Ben Redjeb arrived in Mogadishu in November of 2016,
he was informed by his host that he would have to be accompanied at all times by an armed escort while in the country.
The next morning, a neighbour and former security guard put on a military uniform, borrowed an AK-47 from somewhere
and escorted him to Via Roma, an historical street in the heart of Hamar-Weyne, the city's oldest district.
Although previous Analog Africa releases have demonstrated a willingness to go more than the extra air-mile to track down the stories behind the music,
the trip to Mogadishu was a musical journey of a different kind.
It was the culmination of an odyssey that had started many years earlier.
The secrets to Dur-Dur's rapid success is inextricably linked to the vision of Isse Dahir, founder and keyboard player of the band.
Isse's plan was to locate some of the most forward-thinking musicians of Mogadishu's buzzing scene and lure them into Dur-Dur.
Ujeeri, the band's mercurial bass player was recruited from Somali Jazz and drummer extraordinaire Handal previously played in Bakaka Band.
These two formed the backbone of Dur-Dur and would become one of Somalia's most extraordinary rhythm sections.
Isse also added his two younger brothers to the line-up:
Abukar Dahir Qassin was brought in to play lead guitar, and Ahmed Dahir Qassin was hired as a permanent sound engineer,
a first in Somalia and one of the reasons that Dur-Dur became known as the best-sounding band in the country.
It initially seemed that Dur-Dur's music had only been preserved as a series of murky tape dubs and YouTube videos,
but after Samy arrived in Mogadishu he eventually got to the heart of Mogadishu's tape-copying network
– an analogue forerunner of the internet file-sharing that helped to keep the flame of this music alive
through the darkest days of Somalia's civil strife – and ended up finding some of the band's fabled master tapes, long thought to have disappeared.
This triple LP reissue of the band's first two albums – the first installment in a three-part series dedicated to Dur-Dur Band
– represents the first fruit of Analog Africa's long labours to bring this extraordinary music to the wider world.
Remastered from the best available audio sources, these songs have never sounded better.
Some thirty years after they first made such a splash in the Mogadishu scene,
they have been freed from the wobble and tape-hiss of second and third generation cassette dubs,
to reveal a glorious mix of polychromatic organs, nightclub-ready rhythms and hauntingly soulful vocals.
In addition to two previously unreleased tracks, the music is accompanied by extensive liner notes,
featuring interviews with original band members, documenting a forgotten chapter of Somalia's cultural history.
Before the upheaval in the 1990s that turned Somalia into a war-zone, Mogadishu,
the white pearl of the Indian Ocean, had been one of the jewels of eastern Africa,
a modern paradise of culture and commerce.
Analog Afrika
(EN) For a decade now, Samy Ben Redjeb’s seminal Analog Africa label has been unearthing the best in both explosive foot-shufflers and hypnotic sauntering treasures from Africa. It’s achieved more than most in celebrating the rich and diverse heritage of a much misunderstood and overlooked continent. Samy has spared nothing in his pursuit of choosing authentic and eye-opening choice records. His lifestyle and string of various jobs—from a Life Aquatic sojourn as a diving instructor in Senegal to a stint as a Lufthansa flight attendant crisscrossing the Lagos-Addis Ababa-Accra arc and beyond—have all been centered on a passion for crate digging.
Samy Ben Redjeb at his home in Frankfurt (Germany)
Samy’s inaugural kickstart happened in Dakar, where he first set up a makeshift club night at a hotel. He played an abundance of previously forgotten polyrhythm hotsteppers and dancefloor-beckoning Afro R&B howlers before embarking on the countless misadventures that would define and bear fruit as the Analog Africa record label. Starting with the sun-ripened lilt and cantering Green Arrows of Zimbabwe in 2006, and honing in on the key era of the late 1960s to early 1980s, Samy reintroduced his audience to the raw psychedelic sounds of Benin and Togo: from the now iconic African Scream Contest to the self-coined “Islamic funk belt” and heaventilting horn sections of Ghana on Afro-Beat Airways to the ethereal mystery of landlocked Burkina Faso with Bambara Mystic Soul, and the salacious accordion and Ferro-scrapped dynamism of Cape Verde’s infectious and previously banned Funaná, appearing on the reissue of the legendary archipelagos export Bitori Nha Bibinha. The story of African music, with its long-forgotten footnotes and often ignored links, has also enjoyed enlightening reappraisals—such as the Congolese maestro of electric guitar, Georges Mateta Kiamuangana, otherwise known as Verckys (anointed as “Mister Dynamite” by an astonished James Brown after watching him perform) and the mightiest funk ensemble in all of Africa, the Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou.
By dusting off rare finds, locating those responsible, and in many cases interviewing the principle team or artist behind these iconic recordings, the allencompassing journey from transforming the source material into a sumptuous (and on occasion award-winning) objet d’art is documented for posterity.
(DE) Seit einem Jahrzehnt fördert Samy Ben Redjebs bahnbrechendes Label Analog Africa das Beste aus Afrika zutage - sowohl explosive Fußgänger als auch hypnotisch schlendernde Schätze. Es hat mehr als die meisten anderen erreicht, das reiche und vielfältige Erbe eines oft missverstandenen und übersehenen Kontinents zu feiern. Samy hat nichts gescheut, um authentische und augenöffnende Platten auszuwählen. Sein Lebensstil und seine verschiedenen Jobs - von einem Life-Aquatic-Aufenthalt als Tauchlehrer im Senegal bis hin zu einem Einsatz als Flugbegleiter bei der Lufthansa, der den Bogen von Lagos nach Addis Abeba und Accra und darüber hinaus überspannt hat - sind alle von seiner Leidenschaft für das Kistenwühlen geprägt.
Samy Ben Redjeb in seinem Haus in Frankfurt (Deutschland)
Samys erster Kickstart fand in Dakar statt, wo er zunächst eine behelfsmäßige Clubnacht in einem Hotel einrichtete. Er spielte eine Fülle von bereits vergessenen Polyrhythmus-Hotsteppern und Dancefloor-beachtenden Afro-R&B-Heulern, bevor er sich auf die zahllosen Missgeschicke einließ, die das Analog Africa Plattenlabel definieren und Früchte tragen sollten. Angefangen mit dem sonnengereiften Lilt und den galoppierenden Green Arrows aus Simbabwe im Jahr 2006, hat Samy sein Publikum mit den rohen, psychedelischen Klängen aus Benin und Togo vertraut gemacht und sich auf die Ära der späten 1960er bis frühen 1980er Jahre konzentriert: Vom mittlerweile ikonischen African Scream Contest über den selbstgeprägten "islamischen Funkgürtel" und die heftig schleppenden Bläsersätze Ghanas auf Afro-Beat Airways bis hin zum ätherischen Mysterium des Binnenlandes Burkina Faso mit Bambara Mystic Soul und der anzüglichen Akkordeon- und Ferro-Scrap-Dynamik des ansteckenden und zuvor verbotenen Funaná der Kapverden, das auf der Neuauflage des legendären Archipel-Exports Bitori Nha Bibinha erscheint. Die Geschichte der afrikanischen Musik mit ihren lange vergessenen Fußnoten und oft ignorierten Verbindungen hat ebenfalls eine aufschlussreiche Aufarbeitung erfahren - wie der kongolesische Maestro der E-Gitarre, Georges Mateta Kiamuangana, auch bekannt als Verckys (von einem staunenden James Brown als "Mister Dynamite" bezeichnet, nachdem er ihn auftreten sah) und das mächtigste Funk-Ensemble in ganz Afrika, das Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou.
Durch das Entstauben seltener Fundstücke, das Aufspüren der Verantwortlichen und in vielen Fällen durch Interviews mit dem Hauptteam oder dem Künstler hinter diesen ikonischen Aufnahmen wird die allumfassende Reise von der Umwandlung des Ausgangsmaterials in ein prächtiges (und gelegentlich preisgekröntes) Kunstobjekt für die Nachwelt dokumentiert.