Staff Benda Bilili: "Sala Keba"

The ghettos of Kinshasa, capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, play host to a mélange of survivors. Amongst them is Staff Benda Bilili, a tenacious band of paraplegic musicians, channeling the voices of disenfranchised Congolese into playful rumba melodies. Its members ride atop hand-pedaled tricycles and hustle their songs to any listening ear. It’s all part of their lifestyle and survival strategy, executed with a swagger that just might change the way that the world views and defines disability.

The group is built on the 25-year-old friendship of Coco Gambalé and Ricky Likabu, who have played together since the mid 1980s in bands such as Raka Raka, a backing combo for Afro-pop legend Papa Wemba. In 2002, the two assembled an all-handicapped band with Theo Coude and Paulin Cavalier, musicians that they had come to know through the years. Now in their 50s, the men are intelligent and resourceful, relying on their accumulated knowledge to get by.

“We have always worked with our brains and bare hands,” Likabu says. “We are gifted craftsmen. We can do anything, and we keep our dignity.” Over the course of the 15 years that they’ve known each other, the members of Staff Benda Bilili have developed their sound by leaning on influences that they call “our Congolese fathers”: Franco & OK Jazz, Tabu Ley Rochereau, and Docteur Nico. “James Brown is another great inspiration for us,” Likabu says. “We saw him play in Kinshasa in 1974, and it was a true riot.”

In 2004, Staff Benda Bilili met Roger Landu, a young shége (street kid) who played an instrument that he crafted using a milk-powder tin, fish-basket frame, and electrical wire. Landu is a master of his satongé, a lute-like instrument that spouts out high-pitched vibrations, and he has since become part of the band. “He was living the harsh and brutal life of any shége in Kinshasa,” Likabu says. “One night he came roaming around our rehearsal and started to improvise over our songs. The whole band was amazed. He had the ‘perfect ear.’ We proposed to him to join the band and to live among us.”
 

“We have always worked with our brains and bare hands. We are gifted craftsmen. We can do anything, and we keep our dignity.”

Released in early 2009, the group’s freshman effort, Trés Trés Fort, is an ode to the street kids, war refugees, prostitutes, and orphans of the Democratic Republic of the Congo — the people whom it regards as “true heroes.” The album title can be understood as “very, very loud” or “very, very strong,” and aptly so. Mid-tempo guitar and lute strings amplify to energetic rumba rhythms, as folksy anecdotes unfold in Lingala and French. The album ebbs and flows from the lulls of tranquil tracks like “Sala Keba” to the frantic, mambo-esque “Moziki” and the rapid percolator “Avramandole.”

In partial chant, partial public-service announcement, the men of Benda Bilili croon and warble warnings against the “curse” of Polio on the track “Polomyelite.” “Parents, please don’t neglect your children,” they sing. “The one who is disabled is no different from the others. Treat all your children without discrimination. Who among them will help you when you are in need? God only knows who.”

The album presents itself as an edict of understanding through storytelling. “We feel that we must speak in their name,” Likabu says of those less fortunate. “Because like all the people who live in the streets of Kinshasa, disabled or not, we have to be strong.  We are neglected by the authorities and have to find ways to survive, no matter how.”

To show this incredible story, filmmakers Florent de la Tullaye and Renaud Barret currently are working on a feature-length film documenting Staff Benda Bilili. The exposure that they are sure to receive will hopefully go a long way in realizing the goals that Likabu and his bandmates have set. In English, Staff Benda Bilili translates to “the people who see beyond,” or literally, “put forward what is hidden.” It’s an apt title for men who view others equally — men who want nothing more than the means to house their children and send them to school.

Likabu projects that if Trés Trés Fort is successful, he might see some dreams realized. “We want to rock the world and then go home,” he says. “All of us are fathers of many children, and we want to put them out of trouble. At last, we will be able to pay school fees for all of them and build real homes for us. If the album sells well, we also want to create a Staff Benda Bilili foundation in Kinshasa. We will teach music to the street kids, give wheelchairs to the handicapped. There are so many useful things to do here. It will be a true message of hope to all the disabled people around the world, because you know that we are all disabled people. You are too.”

Vincent Kenis is attempting to light his cigarette with a lamp. His voice is marbled with a thick accent and long pauses as he constructs words to describe his field recordings in Africa. A Belgian musician/producer now well known for his knowledge of Congolese music, he is relaying the story of Konono No. 1, a group from Kinshasa that had all but disappeared until the sudden exposure of Congotronics 1 (Crammed Discs) in 2005 brought global recognition.

“He came to Kinshasa when he was very young,” Kenis says of Konono’s founder, Mawangu Mingiedi, who started the band in the 1970s. “I think he came when his father died. He was born in the village, and his father was…the leader of the king’s orchestra. You know they had local kings in the Congo region. He learned the likembe (a Central African instrument also known as a thumb piano) from his father, and carrying the likembe into town was maybe for him a way to continue to evoke the sounds he heard when he was a kid. It’s like a portable village.”

Mingiedi’s history is tangled up in the history of his country: nebulous kingdoms upended by Belgian colonization, remade into arbitrary regions like incongruous patches on a quilt; a nationalist movement for independence and then the brutality of dictators like Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, who, as the Western and Eastern Blocs played tug-of-war for the globe, renamed the country the Republic of Zaire; and emergence from bloody conflict as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Our music is the heritage that was passed on to us by our parents,” the group says in an E-mail exchange, while en route to the UK, through its translator Aharon Matondo. “Because of the total lack of means, we had to look for elements in garbage dumps — for instance, car alternators, from which we took wires to construct microphones and amplify the likembes. And the cymbals were made from old kitchen pot lids. After we started touring in Europe and America, we improved the amplification, but we always kept those original elements. It became part of our music.”

Its eclectic array of instruments, heard again this summer with Assume Crash Position, centers on the likembe, a small wooden box with metal tines that are plucked with the musician’s thumbs in order to mimic the region’s traditional horn polyphony.

Konono uses several in its lineup — each one handmade by Mingiedi — that weave back and forth across each other like ripples from divergent waves, helping transition call-and-response choruses into electronic jams and filling out the band’s style of Bazombo trance music that garnered it a spot on Bjork’s Volta and Herbie Hancock’s recent The Imagine Project. (Also known as Zombo, the Bazombo are an ethnic group with roots near the Angola border.)

Konono’s odd blend of instrumentation was not borne out of the vacuum of novelization, but rather its physical context. In 1971, Mobutu launched his Authenticity Program — a mandated, nationwide purge of European culture. The impact on local music was enormous. Radio stations only played Congolese music, and bands of relative obscurity were suddenly seen as spokespeople at the very least, saviors at most.

“Mobutu…realized the political strength of the music in Congo,” Kenis says. “Independence is considered by Congolese as a victory brought to them by musicians, as well as politicians.”

The government could only corral musical experience so long. Traditional groups like Konono fell out of favor after only five years, paralleling the prosperity of the nation. The band’s music was again confined to the local public.

It was during this time that Kenis, who was first drawn to Congolese music as a kid — a result of the dense diaspora around Brussels — heard Konono’s music. He made a cassette of it, and while on tour in the late 1970s, this music that was “so radically different than the rumba and the soukous” became like a muse for him.

He had traveled to Congo in ’71, just as the Authenticity Program was beginning, and returned in 1989 and 1996, making recordings of groups like Kasai Allstars and a number of others. Twenty years passed and he had still not found Konono, which remained shrouded by rumors; some reported that Mingiedi had died.

Kenis finally discovered a pocket of Bazombo in Kinshasa. He found the members scattered, eking out livings; Mingiedi was driving a taxi. They met and talked, and two years later, Kenis returned once more to Kinshasa to record the group — a haphazard process that eventually became Congotronics 1.

Even as it gained global acclaim, Konono’s repetitive, almost toy-ish electronic sound was not instantly accessible to the broader audience, especially with track lengths that range between 2 and 12 minutes. When audiences hear Konono, there often is a lull, a lag before they appreciate it.

“After 10 minutes, there’s a kind of uneasiness,” Kenis says. “And then the uneasiness usually goes after 20 minutes, because they catch the thing, the swing. The Konono music…cannot be divided by two infinitum. It’s not in 4/4—it’s like 5/4 or 3/4. It’s very specific. You have to come to terms with the sound — which is evolving constantly and minimalistically over time, but basically staying the same — and [you have to] realize that the shifts in that sameness is the whole game. As soon as people get into it with their bodies — without knowing it, just intuitively — they get it.”

The music of Africa is like this — foreign but deeply understood, with primal roots that unearth hesitation. And yet there is a sense of lacking. Musically, it is rich — both soothing and invigorating, like the view from the continental divide. But there’s a disconnect, a rift between what a Westerner will hear and what the band’s Bakongo brothers and sisters will hear.

“We like playing in the Congo and abroad,” the group says, “[but] in the Congo, what prevails in our concerts is the festive atmosphere, a feeling of joy, and a feeling of coming together with our people and our tradition. These are moments when the spirits of the ancestors are working a lot, and we can feel that. In the rest of the world, it’s [just] the joy and the festive atmosphere.”

ALARM leaves no genre unloved in our round-up of 50 albums that didn't receive enough attention in 2009.

Omar Rodriguez Lopez: Old Money (Stones Throw, 1/27/09)

Omar Rodriguez Lopez: "Family War Funding"

The first of many releases in 2009 from prolific guitarist/composer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. Accessible and centered on rock, sounding spacey, funky, progressive, psychedelic, a little jazzy, and a little Latin.

Kevin Hufnagel: Songs for the Disappeared (self-released, 2/3/09)

Kevin Hufnagel: "Tres"

Musical themes come and go, covering swaths of Spanish and Gypsy guitar before reverting back to haunting rock melodies, on this solo acoustic album from highly technical Dysrhythmia guitarist Kevin Hufnagel.

P.O.S: Never Better (Rhymesayers, 2/3/09)

P.O.S.: "Drumroll"

Likely the year's best hip-hop album, Never Better draws on Stefon Alexander’s background in punk and rock music (he plays most of the live instrumentation on the record), making this is an album that categorically defines the indie in indie rap.

Zu: Carboniferous (Ipecac, 2/17/09)

Zu: "Ostia"

Sludgy alt-metal with complex repeated rhythms and free-jazz freakouts. Features Mike Patton on two killer tracks.

The Andreas Kapsalis & Goran Ivanovic Guitar Duo: s/t (2/24/09)

The Andreas Kapsalis & Goran Ivanovic Guitar Duo: "Shadow Thief"

A Balkan-influenced classical guitarist joins an ethically inspired finger-tapping guitarist for a disc of skill and beauty.

16: Bridges to Burn (Relapse, 2/24/09)

16: "Throw in the Towel"

Dubbed the "Unsane of the West Coast" by ALARM's Jamie Ludwig, 16 issued another hard-hitting riff fest in 2009 with Bridges to Burn, the band's best album to date.

Umlaut: s/t (3/10/09)

Umlaut: "Kitty Puppy"

Mr. Bungle's Bär McKinnon, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire, issued one hell of an album for this new project — one that filters meticulous melodies and asinine vocals through the lens of a whacked-out lounge group.

Jono El Grande: Neo Dada (Rune Grammofon, 3/16/09)

Jono El Grande: "Oslo Coty Suite"

Fanciful music that's different around every turn. Art rock that weaves through theatrical, progressive, classical, and absurdist styles with influences from Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, King Crimson and Igor Stravinsky.

Kylesa: Static Tensions (Prosthetic, 3/17/09)

Kylesa: "Scapegoat"

Down-tuned dirge metal that rumbles with crust punk, sludge, metal, hardcore, and psychedelia, often laced with atmospheric samples. To date, Static Tensions is Kylesa's most powerful album.

(MF) Doom: Born Like This (Lex, 3/23/09)

Doom: "Cellz"

Dropping his “MF” prefix, the incomparable rapper and Marvel-inspired supervillain delivered another nearly impenetrable wall of rhymes and flow, dizzying listeners with his ever-shifting, slowly delivered lyrics.

Staff Benda Bilili

Channeling the voices of the disenfranchised into playful rumba melodies, this tenacious band of paraplegic Congolese musicians captures beautiful music and colorful vocals on its debut album, Trés Trés Fort.

Primarily a group of men in their 50s, Staff Benda Bilili also features the virtuosity of Roger Landu, a street kid with a "perfect ear" whose handmade satongé, a lute-like instrument, spouts out emotive high-pitched vibrations.

Throughout the album, mid-tempo guitar and lute strings amplify to energetic rumba rhythms, as folksy anecdotes unfold in Lingala and French. The album holds tranquil tracks like "Sala Keba," frantic, mambo-esque numbers like "Moziki," and rapid percolators like "Avramandole."  The group's story is inspirational, but its musical ability makes the story compelling.

Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound: When Sweet Sleep Returned (Tee Pee)

Amidst the strong psychedelic-rock scene in the Bay Area, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound creates a unique brand that simultaneously nods to the heavy fuzz of Blue Cheer and the jangly, summery pop of The Byrds while maintaining a spacious and exploratory groove all its own.

The band's new album, When Sweet Sleep Returned, marks a shift away from the band's improv-heavy, '60s-influenced first record, Ekranoplan. On this album, the band has taken its sound into bolder and more spacious territory while retaining some of its fuzzier aspects.

Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound: "Two Birds Sang"
Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound: \"Two Birds Sang\"

Bronnt Industries Kapital: Hard for Justice (Get Physical)

Layering sublime, harmonized synthesizers and organic instrumentation over straightforward dance beats, Hard for Justice is the lissome new album from English IDM producer/multi-instrumentalist Guy Bartell.

Contrasting some of his earlier work that centered on beat arrangements, moods, and effects, Hard for Justice is driven by melody and musical prowess. It won't blow away tech heads, but it's a hypnotizing effort that doesn't get stale from track to track.

Bronnt Industries Kapital: "Streets of Fury"
Bronnt Industries Kapital: \"Streets of Fury\"

Balkan Beat Box: Nu Made (Remixes) (JDub)

Led by Ori Kaplan (ex-Gogol Bordello) and Tamir Muskat (Firewater), this Brooklyn outfit fuses Gypsy, Mediterranean, Jewish, and Arabic music with pulsing dance beats and other new-school sounds, not dissimilar in theme to Caribbean dancehall.

Nu Made lets others remix Balkan Beat Box's remix style, allowing for new takes on the group's mash-up of old instruments and structures with new technology and attitude.  Despite this album's misleading name (BBB's last album was titled Nu Med), the source material on Nu Made spans the band's catalog.

Balkan Beat Box: "Adir Adirim (Nickodemus Remix)"
Balkan Beat Box: \"Adir Adirim (Nickodemus Remix)\"

Warsaw Village Band: Infinity (Barbes)

With a seemingly self-summarizing band name, Warsaw Village Band sounds much like one would expect.  But on top of a healthy dose of Polish folk and droning vocal harmonies, the sextet adds elements of Klezmer music, polyrhythm, and even turntablism.  Infinity will mostly appeal to fans of traditional music, but it could win over new fans with a bit of crossover.

Dan Deacon: Bromst (Carpark, March 24)
This electro-spazz solo artist emphasizes live instrumentation for this anticipated follow-up to Spiderman of the Rings.  On Bromst, Deacon's sonic evolution is highlighted with lively marimba and glockenspiel melodies, live drums, and "real" singing.

Mastodon: Crack the Skye (Warner Bros., March 24)
Mastodon's publicity team has done a great job of building the buzz for Crack the Skye, an album whose themes deal with wormholes and astral travel.  Even if it turns out to be a disappointment, it likely will be better than 95% of all metal albums released this year.

Jerseyband: Beast Wedding (late March)
This incredible unsigned band is in the mixing stages of its new album, one that should further the band's "lungcore" style with mathy grooves, heavy horns, and metal breakdowns.

Staff Benda Bilili: Tres Tres Fort (Crammed Discs, April 7)
This group of paraplegic Congolese street musicians is releasing an album of inspiring material via Crammed Discs. The band's feel-good music will also be celebrated in a forthcoming documentary.

Karl Sanders: Saurian Exorcisms (The End, April 14)
The newest solo album of Nile linchpin Karl Sanders is another beautiful acoustic release of Arabic flavors mixed with Western structures.  Following Saurian Meditation from Relapse in 2004, this album will be released through The End Records.

Prefuse 73: Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian (Warp, April 14)
Guillermo Scott Herren's newest album as his glitchy alter-ego is meant to be a linear work — one that Herren describes as both straight ahead and obscure.

Mr. Lif: I Heard it Today (Bloodbot Tactical Enterprises, April 21)
Continuing a great few months for independent hip-hop releases, outspoken rapper Mr. Lif issues his newest full-length on his own, collecting songs meant to reflect on the recent political landscape and meant to inspire others.

Coalesce: Ox (Relapse, April or May)
Following the outstanding Salt and Passage 7″ from late 2007, this recently reunited pummeling hardcore group unveils a proper follow-up to 0:12 Revolution in Just Listening from 1999.  Taking the Salt and Passage release as a portent, the decade between albums should be worth the wait.

Isis: Wavering Radiant (Ipecac, May 5)
These purveyors of epic, accessible heaviness have gotten progressively more melodic. Whatever this new album sounds like, it should take another step forward while remaining heavy as hell.