- Record Label: Crammed Disc
- Release Date: Jul 15, 2008
- Critic score
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The music is neither bastardized nor precious, just a riveting reflection of the ongoing allure and paradox that is the Congo.
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The result is even more appealing than Konono, drawing on likembes, the buzzing and drum-like tam tam, electric guitars, and half a dozen vocalists to create hypnotic, rich, complex polyrhythmic wonders.
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The sound is terrific, the presentation is handsome, the sound and selection are amazing; and negotiations with musicians are not done on colonial terms.
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It serves up the distorted buzz Congotronics fans jones for, sonics that are generally raunchy even though the thumb pianos also generate balafon beauty, and five lead singers.
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In a style gentler and more richly textured than the crudely amplified minimalism of the series’ debut by Konono N°1, the songs swell in and out of expansive and hypnotic patterns, forming clouds of interwoven rhythms.
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Less encumbered by the colonial detritus of Konono's overdriven drums-meet-junkyard sound, the Allstars let the rhythm section breathe and get funky with indigenous instrumentation. No distortion necessary.
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Making use of relentless, repeated riffs, matched again chanting drum patterns and occasional guitar solos, their often lengthy songs are exhilarating, edgy and at times downright spooky.
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The clever (and accurate) branding that associated the warm, metallic grids of those thumb pianos (or likembes) with repetitive electronic music. On that front, 7th Moon doesn't disappoint a bit.
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UncutMost compelling are the variety of vocals--some spoken, some hollered, some sung in spinetingling harmonies. [Sep 2008, p.98]
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MojoThe Allstars have that same dynamism plus a similarly brutal rhythm section, which sounds like a billion wasps playing Sister Ray in your brain, but they have found some missing ingredients, such as melody and variation. [Sep 2008, p.112]
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The WireThis is a beautiful record, but I wish it had a little more chaos in it. [Oct 2008, p.58]
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This album is a vital addition to the Congotronics series, and anyone who's enjoyed the series so far needs to hear it.
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Mostly they provide gentle melodic loops familiar to fans of old-school soukous and indie-rock fusionists like Vampire Weekend. But sometimes they break ranks.
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Under The RadarIt's an enchanting education in styles we unjustly rarely hear from. [Fall 2008, p.89]
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Buoyant voices erupt in urgent chants, while xylophones, thumb pianos, and percussion create a swirling, hallucinatory web of sound equal to the freakiest psychedelia. [Oct 2008, p.114]
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In their multi-ethnic make-up, the face-painted, twenty-something strong Allstars chant a slightly more devolved game than fellow marimba manglers Konono No.1, but the cumulative effect is similar, a sustained concussion of sound, a kind of sonic vertigo that subverts the cliché of Congo as perpetual victim.
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