Fofoulah

“Fofoulah”

(Glitter Beat Records GBCD 017)

Fofoulah is the brainchild of bassist Johnny Brierley and drummer Dave Smith, both members of North London’s Loop Collective group of musicians. These two formed the engine room of Outhouse, the twin tenor sax fronted quartet led by Smith that released a total of four albums for either Babel or the Loop Collective’s own label between 2008 and 2011.

The second Outhouse album “Ruhabi” saw the quartet performing with a group of sabar drummers, members of the Wolof people from The Gambia, West Africa. The fascinating music that developed out of this cross cultural alliance received considerable critical acclaim and the enlarged ensemble Outhouse Ruhabi toured extensively in the UK in 2009 with the final performance at London’s Café Oto being documented in the form of a live album.

“Fofoulah”, meaning “it’s there” in Wolof, was originally an Outhouse tune and the band of the same name is essentially a direct descendent of the Outhouse Ruhabi project but one that places the emphasis even more firmly on the African elements of the music.  Former Outhouse saxophonist Tom Challenger joins Smith and Brierley in the new group alongside guitarist Phil Stevenson and Wolof drummer Kaw Secka who plays the sabar and tama drums. Smith also plays sabar in addition to the conventional drum kit while Challenger also contributes keyboards. The album also includes appearances from a number of illustrious guest vocalists and instrumentalists, most notably Senegalese singer Butch Gueye who appears on four of the album’s nine tracks.

The liner notes of this lavishly packaged release explain how Smith first visited The Gambia in 2002 and studied Sabar drumming with Kaw Secka’s father Ebou. There is also a description of the Sabar drums themselves which are built of mahogany wood and goat skin, the skin being held in place by a combination of string, rope and wooden pegs. The drums are played with one stick and one hand and can produce seven different sounds. A typical Sabar group features six drums with each one assigned a different sound or rhythmic function in the playing of Bakas, unison rhythmic passages based on the spoken rhythms of prayers or proverbs. The different sounds are also linked to specific dance movements. As Smith explains this is intensely spiritual, deeply traditional music that is at the heart of all Wolof culture and it played at all kinds of ceremonial, celebratory and cultural events.

Since his inaugural visit to The Gambia Smith has returned no less than six times and his mastery of African rhythms has led to a lucrative and high profile gig with ex Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant and his band the Sensational Shape Shifters. I’m used to seeing Smith perform at intimate jazz venues like Dempsey’s in Cardiff but I also enjoyed watching him on TV when Plant and the Shapeshifters played a brilliant show at Glastonbury Festival in the summer of 2014 in front of a crowd of thousands. The set included several fresh and invigorating takes on classic Zeppelin songs, the arrangements breathing new life into the old war horses and giving them an innovative and distinctive North/West African twist. I was probably the only person peering past Lord Percy and trying to see what the drummer was doing!
Smith’s verdict on it all? “Lots of fun but very nerve wracking!” 

And so to the music on Fofoulah’s first full length album (following the earlier EP “Bene Bop”). A sticker on the cover promises “propulsive Gambian rhythms mixed with dub bass lines, sci fi keyboards and afro-rock guitars”. It’s certainly fiercely rhythmic, as one would suspect, but many of the pieces are fully formed songs with lyrics written by Gueye and other guest vocalists. The album packaging kindly provides English language translations.

First up is “No Troubles” subtitled “Kelinte” a collaboration between Fofoulah and Gueye in which the vocalist sings the praises of communal unity. The rhythms are both propulsive and absorbing, Stevenson’s jangling guitar sounds archetypally “African” and guest Dan Nicholls adds those dense sci fi style keyboards. As promised there’s a dub element in there too plus some wildly exciting percussion exchanges.

“Hook Up”, subtitled “Nango Dereh” opens with the sound of African percussion and deploys the voice of another guest artist, the exuberant Juldeh Camara , with whom Smith plays in the band JuJu. Camara also adds the distinctive sound of the kologo, the West African two stringed lute. His lyrics are another call for peace and unity and ride an infectious groove featuring Sabar drums and further enlivened by Challenger’s sax and guest Alex Bonney on trumpet..   

Challenger’s horns introduce “Make Good”, subtitled “Soumala”, another piece featuring the voice and lyrics of Gueye. This time the words speak of love between a man and a woman and the role of marriage within West African society. Brierley’s monstrous bass line takes the music into the promised dub territory but Gueye’s vocals and the rhythms of Smith and Secka ensure that the sound of West Africa remains at its core.

“Don’t Let Your Mind Unravel, Safe Travels” features the only lyric to be delivered in English. The half spoken/half sung words are from the pen of “Ghostpoet” but are not reproduced on the album packaging. They appear to tell a tale of poverty and spirituality on the streets of contemporary London - although I could be wrong. The voice is buried in a kind of dubby/ ambient mix featuring guitars, bass and keyboards and underscored by subtle drums and percussion. It’s less obviously “African” than its immediate predecessors.

Gueye returns for “The Clean Up” (subtitle “Rahas”), sharing the vocals with Kaw Secka. The piece is a joyous celebration of the role of the Griot in West African society, with Stevenson’s guitars and Challenger’s keyboards giving the first half of the song a bright and breezy hi-life feel. The second half is more intense, percussion driven and with the chanted incantations becoming almost mantra like (how’s that for cross cultural referencing?)

Algerian female vocalist Iness Mezel guests on “Blest”, her brief lyric a paean to the role of women. Stevenson’s guitar introduces the piece and Mezel’s voice floats beguilingly above Challenger’s elongated sax melody lines, Stevenson’s jangling guitar and an insistent percussive undertow that features world music guru Justin Adams (currently also a member of Plant’s Shape Shifters) playing the North African frame drum, the bandir, instead of his more usual guitar. The piece also includes the sound of the krakebs, a type of North African castanet heard in the Gnawa music of Morocco and Algeria, played here by Nora Boyer.

The instrumental “Fighting Chance” is based on a rhythm known as “Prim” which is played at wrestling contests in Lamba, Togo. It’s dominated by the percussion of Smith and Secka but also features more of those “sci-fi keyboards” as played by Challenger.

Challenger switches to sax for the lengthy “Reality Rek”, co-written with Gueye and featuring a lyric in praise of art and the collective creative process. Kit and Sabar drums drive the song, allied to Challenger’s nagging sax hook. As so often on this album the effect is hypnotic. Challenger’s subsequent sax solo, a joyously whinnying affair with its roots in the spiritual jazz of Coltrane and Sanders will delight jazz listeners as Stevenson takes up a rhythmic role. Gueye’s vocal performance is joyous and uplifting, arguably his best of the album as he’s swept along on a tidal wave of groove and rhythm.

The fleeting cameo that is “Last Orders” is pure Wolof, a brief sabar duet between Smith and Secka . There is no lyric as such but the album brochure spells out the sounds of the sabar drums phonetically, presumably in the words of the Wolof people. Does anybody else out there get me when I say that this aspect reminds me of the late Pip Pyle’s “Phlakaton”?

Fofoulah’s first album is an impressive statement, an effective combination of African and Western musical elements. Its Pan-African approach featuring a number of musical styles from the continent ensures that there is plenty of variety and the presence of the numerous guest vocalists/lyricists ensures that this is an authentic collection of convincing songs rather than a series of extended percussion heavy instrumental jams.

It’s essentially a “world music” album and may hold limited appeal to the jazz purist but most adventurous music listeners should find something to enjoy here.  Brierley’s liner notes speak of the music as being “shaped by diversity and the meeting of different cultures” and that the blend of influences felt “right, honest and exciting”, reflecting the spirit of 21st century London and beyond. 

 

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