© dr Erik Aliana on MySpace

With its highly nuanced singing and infinite vibrations, vocals interlaced with delicate polyphonies, blithely complex rhythms, the woody sounds of traditional instruments (balafon, percussion, guitars, etc.), and flutes, sound effects, hissing and whistling, the lavish Songs of Badissa, the new 12-track album by Erik Aliana and his Korongo Jam, sounds like a call from Cameroon’s equatorial forest, which is where the singer, a descendant of the O’Sananaga people, comes from.

Surrounded by four musicians, the artist, who got himself noticed playing with Chiwoniso, Manu Dibango and Lokua Kanza, brandishes the colours of his ancestors and perpetuates their vivacious sound. Aliana’s work perpetuates a fragile heritage, interwoven with makossa (an urban brass music from Cameroon, made popular by Dibango) and bikutsi (traditional women’s music from the Beti ethnic group), inspired by initiation ceremonies, assiko (a healing dance) and pygmy sounds.

Toumbé Erik Aliana Songs from Badissa (Buda Musique) 2011 Listen

At the same time, the artist blows the dust way from this musical legacy, mixing tradition with jazzy bass, touches of funk and cha cha cha. The lyrics relate some hot topics of our times, like alcoholism in Cameroon, AIDS, respect for women or the ferocious pillage of African resources by the West. The high points of this sunny, subtle album are its fine architecture, and Aliana’s undeniable talent as arranger. Every track on Songs of Badissa opens up a Pandora’s box of rhythmic, melodic and harmonic surprises.

Erik Aliana & Korongo Jam Songs of Badissa Buda Musique (2011)
Playing live at La Bellevilloise in Paris on 8 July

Translation by : Anne-Marie Harper