Angola Soundtrack

The Unique Sound of Luanda 1968-1976

Angola Soundtrack is the ninth Analog Africa compilation, and it is a very impressive piece of scholarship, detective work, and music.  In the lengthy booklet that accompanies this disc, producer Samy Ben Redjeb goes into great detail outlining the extremes to which he went collecting the music and licensing for this compilation.  Apparently, Angola is not the easiest place to get into, and Luanda is a very expensive city to visit.  Who knew?

Anyway, the album is made up of eighteen tracks that survey the variety of Angolan music from the seventies.  The sub-sub-title of the album refers to 'Distorted Semba, Kazucuta, Psychedelic Merengue, Instrumental Hits'.  While I'm not all that sure what all that means, it translates into some pretty amazing music.

Angola had a different musical feel to it than Nigeria or Ghana did in the same time period.  I don't have the musical vocabulary or writing skill to explain what that is; all I can say is that I've enjoyed listening to it and learning about it a lot.