The Tribal Sound of Baka Beyond & Outback 1991-2014 (Lp 2x12")

Description

Hypnotic didgeridoo drones, interlocking African rhythms, psychedelic guitar riffs and Baka polyphonic singing: across Outback and Baka Beyond, his two musical projects, British guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Martin Cradick takes a gloriously strange route through folk, psychedelia and the outer reaches of dance music. Moving between trance-inducing grooves, propulsive, organic four-to-the-floor rhythms, tracks like Outback's “What Can I Say,” with its hypnotic didgeridoo and house-inflected piano, or Baka Beyond's “Booma Lena,” a lush swirl of Baka vocals, sinuous violin, TR-808 drums and rippling percussion, sound as much at home on a contemporary dancefloor as they did in the world music racks of the early 1990s. Compiled by Pol Valls, this eight-track selection explores the more leftfield corners of both groups' catalogues, tracing a musical journey that began in Oxford in 1988, when Cradick joined forces with didgeridoo innovator and Grateful Dead collaborator, Graham Wiggins. Their experiments with looping, improvisation and cyclical rhythms soon caught the attention of producer Joe Boyd, launching Outback's recording career. The seeds of his second band Baka Beyond were sown in 1989, when Cradick stumbled upon a television documentary about the Baka forest people of Cameroon. What followed was the beginning of an extraordinary musical adventure spanning more than three decades, involving countless collaborations, unlikely encounters, brushes with the authorities and an enduring relationship with generations of Baka musicians.