Adventures in Afropea 3: Telling Stories to the Sea

Submitted by Stuart Freedman on 14 February 2013 - 10:51pm

Cover:

Artist:

Various

album-ID:

a_38

Nationality:

Cape Verde

Year:

1 995

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Mona Ki Ngi Xiça*Salalé*Sodade*N'Zambi*Bô Legá Caçô Modê Bô*N Gana*Bia Lulucha*Tulipa Negra*Amor Divino*Rosinha*Luís di Kandinha*Vizinha Ka Bale*Mamã África

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_16

Now-num:

Short-title:

afropea3

nominator-ID:

u_20

Meeting-date:

Wednesday, 3 December 2008

MusicBrainz-URL:

release-group/30c783af-55d2-34e4-bed2-636583990975

Discogs-URL:

Various-Adventures-In-Afropea-3-Telling-Stories-To-The-Sea/master/547424

Allmusic-URL:

adventures-in-afropea-3-telling-stories-to-the-sea-mw0000176917

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90

reviewed by

Stuart Freedman

Gentle, melancholy and sweet

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13

This album showcases the musical triangle that links Europe, Africa and the Atlantic Islands (Portugal, Angola, Sao Tome and Cape Verde). It features a fine selection of artists loosely singing in the Portuguese tradition of 'morna' with the Cape Verdean theme of loss and longing (hence 'telling stories to the sea...) it's a good introduction to the mix that is Afro-Portuguese: semba, kizomba and latin elements. Sits with previous releases under the Afropea label which was David Byne's attempt to unite European and African styles (initially with Brazilian rhythms). Notable tracks are from Césaria Évora (a pipe smoking granny who is a mix of Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday) and Bonga (whose album Angola '72 forced him into exile).
72

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Varied selection of Afro-Portugese based music

1-8-9

2-13

This compilation album is a bit all over the place - there are obviously a number of influences to music in Cape Verde, and jumping from track to track I found it difficult to remember if I was in Cuba, Portugal, NW Africa, Central America, Brazil or even South Africa. Partly this is down to my less than complete understanding of world music but also down to a scattergun approach on the choices here - don't worry if you don't like this style of music, there'll be another one along in a minute. This feels more like a sampler selection, where you might follow up on the tracks and artists that appealed to you, rather than being a coherent album in its own right.

Having said that, I thought the quality of the tracks was quite high throughout, I did particularly enjoy the more up-tempo ones from the middle / latter stages, probably because they were more reminiscent of Caribbean / Central American music that I'm more partial too. I actually enjoyed the early 80s keyboards sounds and electro hand claps and the sort, in a sympathetic, PC, post-ironic sort of way, of course. All in all a mixed bag, but some good stuff.
44

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
28

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

Cut the cheesy synths and speak English, boi...

8

6-10

I don't think this a particularly talented album, which has usually been my get out clause when I say I don't enjoy African style world music. Picking up on a loop/riff and repeating it for 6 minutes whilst adding random spatterings of bongos and synths is something any average musician can do.

Some of the sounds on this album are embarrassing, and often cheesy, and appear to have been made by a 10 year old's Casio synth. Perhaps I'm not being particularly sympathetic to the African cause, but it's not my area of specialty, and you have to take the music at face value.