Badge Music Blog

Why you need to see Konono No 1

Björk's favourite percussion group are rescuing African music from the ethno-tourists.

Konono No. 1
They tried to make them go to the world music section, but they said Konono...

Konono No1 come to the UK for a series of shows next week. Visas permitting, that is - past visits to Europe by this Congolese percussion troupe have been fraught with the sort of problems you can well imagine occur when a bunch of African men rock up at border control with a bunch of instruments apparently made of scrap metal and old car parts (not for nothing, you feel, does their name translate to something similar to "assume crash position").

Konono No.1's star has risen swiftly in the two years since the release of their debut album, Congotronics. In part, you can thank Björk, who not only invited Konono to guest on her recent single Earth Intruders, but to play a handful of shows on her world tour. Mostly, though, it's down to the content of their music itself - rolling, metallic percussion and the melodic trill of likembé, traditional thumb piano, all amplified through a public address system - that seems to bridge the gap between traditional African tribal rhythm and the synthetic thrill of techno. This is a good thing. Because if once, the term 'world music' had something of colonial deference to it - happy natives queuing up to sell their ethnic sounds to an audience of self-satisfied, Viz's Modern Parents-style ethno-tourists - Konono sound enjoyably ramshackle and piecemeal in a way that feels, cheerfully, free from Western expectation.

Which, ironically, means 'the West' has come to bloody love them. More recently, there's been a new influx of labels and blogs dedicated to uncovering the real African music - sounds of impromptu carnivals held in distant shanty towns, or West African folk tales sung by hoarse-voiced griots and sold in markets on cassette tapes. Oh, and the music itself seems to be having an influence, too. Albums by the likes of Animal Collective and Black Dice have toyed with African sounds, while the fact that Konono's Bristol show on August 3 sees them play alongside bass-pumping dubstep artists Appleblim and Bass Clef suggests this music has the broad appeal to break outside the WOMAD ghetto. If they stay away from Madonna, a bright, borderless future beckons.

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