VARIOUS ARTISTS - Legends of Benin (Analog Africa)

Continuing Analog Africa's fascinating series of funk from '70s Benin, crate-digging compiler Ben Redjeb focuses on four of the celebrated bandleaders from the era.

Honoré Avolonto, Antoine Dougbé, Gnonnas Pedro and El Rego led tight and soulful bands that combined local styles such as the polyrhythmic call and response of Agbadja and the heavy, horn-driven Vodoun sound (as delivered by Orchestra Poly-Rythmo on another of these Analog Africa collections), with shades of Afrobeat and Latin flavours blended in to make a dense and funky stew. The ever-present influence of James Brown permeates the album, and some of it is a bit too derivative in places, right down to the repeated horn riffs and yowling yelps. But when they get it right - as on the crisp, funky opener Dadje Von O Von Non by Gnossas Pedro and his Dadjes Band, and Antoine Dougbé loose-limbed, skanking moments - it's a superior soulful sound.

It's Gnonnas Pedro and his catchy, Cuban-influenced agbadja who unsurprisingly stands out most - this legendary band leader also worked with the aforementioned Orchestra Poly-Rythmo and went on to appear with Afro-Latin band Africando. His death in 2004 plunged the nation into mourning and he is surely well-overdue his own career retrospective. Let's hope the good people at Analog Africa are on the case.

GANGBE BRASS BAND - Assiko (Contre Jour)

Benin's brass band blow up another storm with their latest tight and funky album. An exuberant combination of colonial military brass music and West African juju and assiko rhythms, Gangbé Brass Band manage to sound a whole lot better than their description looks on paper. Marrying joyously bright horns and syncopated rhythms - held down by a raunchy tuba bass beat - the spirit of this music is geared for dancing not marching.

It's a sound that could tend to sameness, yet sufficient influences abound to keep it all bubbling along, from vibrant trumpet lines that are reminiscent of the '70s Afro-Caribbean disco sound of Osibisa, through dramatic film-score flourishes (the excellent Sofada) to improvised syncopated beats that underlie soaring European folk melodies.
And although Assiko is largely instrumental, there's plenty of rousing call-and-response vocalising to infuse it all with a social, almost spiritual, feel.

It all comes together most agreeably on Un étè à Vodelée, which possesses a touch of Caribbean sunshine, some hard and heavy West African percussion, storming horn bridges and the merest hint of a mambo beat, all topped off with French (or French Antilles)-style accordion wheezing in and out of the gaps.
Upbeat, melodic, vibrantly rhythmic stuff.

ORCHESTRE POLY-RYTHMO DE COTONOU - Volume One: The Vodoun Effect 1973-1975 (Analog Africa)

More extraordinary, and previously inexplicably unknown, vintage West African funk unearthed by the diligent Afo-enthusiasts at Analog Africa. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou were from Benin, the small coastal country to the west of Nigeria, and they remained a relatively obscure band outside their native country (with as few as 500 pressings a time for some of their recordings) which seems astonishing when listening to the vibrant, heavy and enticingly polyrhythmic sound (the name doesn’t lie!) that they were plying at the time. Built around snappy, clipped guitar lines and a satisfyingly loose rhythm section, with pumping blasts from the horn section and watery organ adding a swaying, psychedelic texture to the sound, the sound (derived from the traditional Vodoun - or voodoo - rhythm called ‘sato’) is a perfect, gritty fit between the more sophisticated jazz-influence of Afrobeat and the dance friendly highlife music of Ghana and Nigeria. It’s rough and ready stuff at times (most of this music was originally recorded onto reel-reel-tape recorders using just a couple of mikes), and the vocalists are functional at best - chanting, pushing the beat on rather than being a focal point to the songs. However, it’s the intense drive of the instrumentation that appeals, with horns and guitars coming in and out of focus whilst the drummer beats out a strong, resolute beat over a babbling, bubbling bass roll. It’s ideal music for a dank and sweaty club set where groove trumps gloss, and there’s yet more of it to come - this is Volume One of Two, and given that it’s three decades since this music had even a very limited exposure, the time is ripe for the Vodoun effect to take full funky centre stage for a much wider audience.