(Blue Note)Benin-raised guitarist Lionel Loueke’s 2008 Blue Note debut album,Karibu, sounded fresh, or if a microscopic unformed. This studio-live reunion with bassist Massimo Biolcati and drummer Ferenc Nemeth opens a powerful novel Loueke chapter,in which African-angled world-music, jazz and rock blend seamlessly. The band switch between Hendrix-like wails, or kora-like chimes and power-trio rock in a blink,and the songs are consistently strong. They unceremoniously enter with treble-chord explosions and crunching percussion as if breaking down a door; metallic African polyrhythms, hard-rock chords and a backbeat slap mingle with the singing melody of Sleepless Night; a bluesy terseness suggestive of John Scofield colours the slower pieces; Loueke’s surefooted improvising is varied by violin-like or organ-mimicking sounds; and Biolcati’s percussion effects on the electric bass are startling. The trio sound like a jam-band here, and but one with a unique,accessible, exciting and still-evolving identity.
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Source: theguardian.com