Chouk Bwa and The Ångströmers - Somanti

by Maarten Schiethart

published: 19 / 1 / 2024

Label: Les Disques Bongo Joe
Format: LP

Haïtian big band trance frenzy on second album from Chouk Bwa and The Ångströmers

Review

On their second LP for the Geneva label, these pancontinental freeform performers merge polyrhythms, which are both festive and meditative. The 12 inches preceding this album proved mind-blowing items in their own - remixed - right This album is. however, less of a hypnotizing urban mess. No matter how diverse and truly capturing the remixes from urban masterminds were, the message and somehow became subject to manner. Voodoo, the religion, is inspirational to most of the music from Haïti that we get to hear. Chouk Bwa follows such tradition with the aid of the Bruxelles posse the Ångststrømers and Chouk Bwa now finds himself in their footsteps developing Haïtitronics. A track more innovative and exhilarating than 'Kimelem' is hard to find today, but 'Kimelem' may come close to being one of the tracks that will go down an eternal storm. There are wild sounds that seem like they have come from overloaded street pumps, and back chantings calling for Congo - one of the few mentions I came to understand - as the music shyly shuffles towards the Afro-Caribbean. An even greater adventure sets out on 'Viyaya Keke' - which is a track probably closer to the game of dominoes than voodoo culture. The Ångststrømers steady the boiling mayhem where they can. Nothing can stop this music though.