Bamba Pana Poaa

[Nyege Nyege Tapes; 2018]

Styles: singeli, gabber, c (universal physical constant)
Others: Makaveli, nightcore, M.C. Escher

\•/=\•/ BRAND-NEW DANCE FROM AFRICA \•/=\•/

sun down, grids connect, skylines click on;
video camera flash fire beams of light into the Black sky.
speakers boot up, emcee pulls the clutch; drum beat releases the breaks:

Dar-es-Salaam
    speeding forward
        at 300,000 km/s

/•\=/•\ LET’S GO, DANCE — EVERYBODY /•\=/•\

ignition inaugurates cycles of movement, minute hands in the air to punctuate snare rushes in their rotation, distorting time, moving so fast it stretches, stretches out elastic space into Black bubblegum beats, thinned out to the ripping point, where jam-packed feels almost empty & disembodied, absolute breakdown imminent yet sown together by the vitality of constant change: a patchwork of aggressive vigor, joyful panache, human ingenuity.

music so full of vitality it’s hyperactive, a programmatic simulation of vitality so hyperactive — so obscenely, unfeasibly alive — that only a machine could run it. that only a machine could outrun the body, the fleshy matrix of motion for which its disembodied music was designed, is the antithesis of Poaa, of rhythms that approach the edge of experience in their intensity, sheer madness — the limit-experience of dance.

singeli is unfeasible music that imagines new possibilities for the human; not even a machine could outrun the body. it’s an optimistic, impish taunt, a counterpoint to accelerationism articulated in the language of technology — a comeback, a challenge.

but Bamba Pana fast-forwards further into a future in which human & machine so intertwine that the margins between them (us) entirely disappear. the result is haunting: an uncanny sonic valley, hot & sweaty in relentless motion yet bereft of human warmth — a post-apocalyptic savanna, a landscape onto which to resurrect what was never — or was always — sentient: psychic percussion, haunted ngomas, ghosts in the drum machine, snares to reprogram a ritual-summoning-qua-dance-party where everyone’s invited: a djinn wearing sunglasses, witches shaking ass, Serengeti cyborgs taking selfies with Diamond Platnumz in one of the fastest growing cities in the world.

rubble fields in Dar-es-Salaam speeding forward at 300,000 km/s are the epicenter of impossibility, but the action takes place in (through) the human body. ultimately, Poaa is a selection of non-Euclidean blueprints, the oblique scaffolding of which Bamba Pana is merely the architect, not the engineer. just as music notation is of minor interest vis-à-vis the sounds it denotes, so Poaa is about a dimension further above: the action the music conducts. outstretched arms, spinning hips, bending knees are the true foci of attention: muscle pulleys & axles of motion that execute the record’s carnival architecture — motion capture.

if singeli is unfeasible music that imagines new possibilities for the human, then Bamba Pana enforces them. by raising the stakes on Poaa, those possibilities — once fantastic, even uncanny — are given fresh imminence and brought unflinchingly into the present.

Links: Nyege Nyege Tapes

Eureka!

Some releases are so incredible we just can’t help but exclaim EUREKA! While many of our picks here defy categorization and explore the constructed boundaries between ‘music’ and ‘noise,’ others complement, continue, or rupture traditions that provide new forms and ways of listening. Not all of our favorites will be listed here, but we think each EUREKA! album is worthy of careful consideration. This section is a work-in-progress, so expect its definition to be in perpetual flux.

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