Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band
"Struggle"
(STUDIO ONE ARTISTS)
SOUNDS LIKE: A great blend of the traditional and the modern.
World music can be intimidating for those of us who grew up with traditional American and British rock classics. Anything featuring new instruments, different languages or any kind of chanting can be a huge mental gap to bridge. But if you want to explore a new breed of music, there's no better place to start than right here in D.C. with one of the local favorites, Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band, who just released their debut album.
Chopteeth took the sounds of traditional African music and imported them straight into their albums, sampling the big sounds of deep bass drums and traditional string instruments and pairing them with two electric guitar riffs and soothing organ tones. The results are songs full of noise, loud horns under fast beats and calming vocals, leaving us with an album that's a joy to listen to in all its subtle facets. The unrelenting, grand sounds of afrofunk dominate the scene, lending to the entire album a central theme to unite the disparate elements into one unified sound.
The key word here is "funk." Chopteeth appropriated jazz beats and blues rhythms galore, and mixed it all together with vocals and chants spanning more than a handful of languages. The result is an album of immense danceability and easy listening, as versatile as the many instruments and voices brought together on this debut. The entire album feels like an eclectic melting pot of genres with an African undercurrent, and is intriguing enough regardless of how new you are to the genre as a whole.
- MICHAEL RICHARDSON
Mogwai
"The Hawk is Howling"
(MATADOR RECORDS)
SOUNDS LIKE: A particularly intense soundtrack for your day.
Mogwai has aggressively resisted the term post-rock, but they have helped to define the genre for more than a decade. While bands like Sigür Ros and Godspeed You! Black Emperor seem to revel in the label, creating more and more complex and extended sounds and songs, this Scottish band has maintained a steady supply of guitar driven drones and spiraling instrumentals. That a band that almost completely forsakes lyrics manages to create songs that still evoke such clear and varied emotions is a testament to their talent.
"The Hawk is Howling" is no different. Mogwai continues to distill what makes them a joy to listen to, and the result is a remarkably polished album from a band that is so accustomed to noise. Delicate guitar lines overlay deep, plodding bass in songs like "Daphne and the Brain," while "The Sun Smells Too Loud" straddles genres, maintaining the dense nature of their earlier work while laying down a tempo ripped from the newest indie-pop band.
The main problem with "The Hawk is Howling" is that Mogwai is still resistant towards giving their songs a sense of growth and climax. While the songs seem to pulsate with energy, pulling forward and sinking back with fluctuating intensity, there is rarely any real emotional release. The album makes you wait endlessly for what never really comes, which can be frustrating for the first few listens. Still, subsequent listens are worthwhile if you're willing to jump into it and ignore expectations.
- M.R.
