Warm Heart of Africa
Malawi, Africa-born singer Esau Mwamwaya along with Johan Karlberg and DJ Tron from U.K. DJ/production duo Radioclit successfully blend rootsy African pop with Karlberg and Tron’s self-coined “ghetto pop” (a mesh of British grime, Dirty South hip-hop and Baltimore club) to birth this outstanding and innovative debut album that rocks, grooves and soothes all at once. Whether they’re looping organically recorded finger-snaps with plucked violin strings under Mwamwaya’s layered vocals sung in Malawian tongue (“Yalira”), or keyboarding early ‘80s-sounding synth-pop over similarly antiquated beats (“Chalo”), or fusing Brazilian funk with dubstep (“Angonde”), they manage to retain a unique signature sound that ties it all together. The title track is an animated hit that rings around samples of vintage foreign cinema scores with a fun pots-and-pans percussion and a cameo by Vampire Weekend’s frontman Ezra Koenig. “Rain Dance” is another standout that makes good use of a rain stick and controlled bits of drum-circle rhythms as well as the sultry-voiced M.I.A. chiming in with some very fitting guest vocals.
Back in 2007, a chance meeting at a second-hand furniture store led the Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya to team up with underground European DJ/producer duo Radioclit to form The Very Best. In 2008 they dropped “Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit Are The Very Best”, a leftfield surprise of a mixtape that joyously smashed borders and gate-crashed numerous end-of-year lists. Without promotional assistance or financial support, the collection of well-known pop, dance, afro and indie tracks remixed by Radioclit featuring Mwamwaya’s singing charted more than 300,000 downloads and was hailed by tastemakers including Pitchfork, FADER, and Gorilla vs. Bear among many others. The good news is that that mixtape didn't mark the end of this unique collaboration, with the band releasing their dazzling debut LP, Warm Hear Of Africa in 2009, featuring guest appearances from M.I.A. and Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig.
The full-length debut from this Afropop project rises to the high standard of their 2008 mixtape; guests include M.I.A. and Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend.
You’d almost just have to hate nice things to have a problem with The Very Best. Sure, on paper, the collaboration might seem a little rangy: A Malawian singer living in London is discovered by a Franco-Swedish producer who buys a bicycle from his junk shop; musical confluence abounds. But the output of that chance…
As the sun sets on our short, frigid, British Summer, The Very Best (an international trio representing France, Sweden and Malawi) are set to cast an electro-pop jewel into space to replace that huge,
<p>This album defies all preconceptions and never settles into a genre you could name, writes <strong>Charlie Gillett</strong></p>