Five Star Review: Various Artists - Musical Instruments 7 - Guitar 2

There's obviously an infinite number of things that have been or could be said about the power of music to erase boundaries and bring disparate peoples together, however briefly or facilely, and all that shit but fuck sometimes (to quote the Bard) you really can't kick that feeling when it hits and as bogus as the concept of "empowering" art may be, the right music can be a balm to the burns that life leaves us with, even on a massive scale. I have no idea what this has to do with anything.

One thing I like about this comp, unlike so many old "world (gag me with a spoon) music" releases (and too many of those today) is that even though Hugh Tracey gets the overall album artist nod the musicians are fully credited and not just "Village Elder of Whatever Tribe" or, christ, "A Young Girl," when it's clearly a grown woman fronting an entire orchestra. No, that's George Sibanda melting away all of your sadness with vox and guitar on "Guabi, Guabi," and don't you forget it.

You hear a lot of talk about "African blues" these days because white people are terrified of things that aren't directly analogous to things they're already familiar with, and while the accuracy of using that term to describe Tizita or Tishoumaren is highly debatable, that's exactly what is found on this utterly indispensable gem of a compilation published in 1972 on Kaleidophone.

The unwieldily and unmemorably titled Musical Instruments 7 - Guitars 2 collects 12 impeccable displays of unadorned melodic wizardry from across the mother continent, in an acoustic mode that should be mostly familiar to those on good terms with, idk, Blind Blake or, say, Josh White, but not without its own Afro-flourishes (oh and there's an 'ud solo tacked on the end for some reason, despite 'ud not... being... guitar?). One thing that sets it apart from American blues is that the majority of this, regardless of the lyrics, be they in Swahili or Luba-Kasai, at least SOUND happy - ebullient, even. There's tons of variety within the one-or-more-person-singing-with-one-guitar-and-sometimes-percussion milieu and honestly all 12 songs bang relentlessly and glide sweetly along. Well, maybe not the 'ud solo...

I honestly prefer the best tracks here, which is most of them, to virtually any of the American music they so obviously take queues from - its fresh, hypnotic, gorgeous, gentle grooves demand repeat listens and command smiles to appear on even the severest faces. What a force for good in the world.