This record is really bad background music. I know, I know: What good is a CD full of eight- and 10-minute instrumentals if you can’t talk over it at the Starbucks counter or pipe it into the living room when the in-laws visit? Really good listening music, that’s what.
“Who Is William Onyeabor?” – released by David Byrne’s world music label Luaka Bop Records last week – is an efficient glimpse into the work of the titular hero. Beyond the fact that he put out eight self-financed records between 1977 and 1985 before finding religion and ditching music for good, no one really knows what Onyeabor’s all about. Some say he’s a crowned chief of his hometown in Nigeria. Others claim he runs a successful flour mill nearby.
It’s tempting to compare Onyeabor’s work to the Fela Kuti-helmed Afrobeat movement that rose to such prominence in the mid-1970s, but most of the tunes presented here incorporate the call-and-response vocals and energetic grooves that popularized the genre.
With its frequent reliance on drum machine loops and synthesizer experimentation, “Who Is William Onyeabor?” bears more resemblance to the freewheeling, “try it and see” approach of Paul McCartney’s highly personal home studio tinkerings “Ram” and “McCartney II,” like on “Love is Blind” where video game lasers and synthesized harpsichord take the foreground and Onyeabor’s half-chanted, half-mumbled vocals float along in the back of the mix.
“Something You Will Never Forget” is a 10-minute bass and wood block groove punctuated periodically by understated Scotty Moore-style guitar, fat horn spurts and a slinky down-tempo baritone sax solo.
The same musical moment never occurs twice, but the songs rarely seem cluttered. Simple idiosyncrasy supplants busy peacocking. If you’re into Devo co-founder Mark Mothersbaugh’s quirky compositions for the soundtrack to Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zisou,” chances are you’ll dig this CD.
There are a few songs that when the instrument-scapes come off as campaigns for style at the expense of substance, a la the lesser cuts from David Bowie’s plastic soul effort “Young Americans.” But if a few tracks get lost in the shuffle, it’s only because the cream of the crop is so deserving of the attention it demands.
