The Karindula Sessions

This excellent Crammed Discs record captures the raw, urgent, trance-like energy of karindula music, the “tradi-modern” style from south-eastern Congo that gets its name from the enormous Karindula banjo, usually made out of an oil barrel, a goat skin, four strings, and an empty bag of powdered milk. The album (and accompanying video) was recorded during a street festival in Lubumbashi, and with its rapid, repetitive riffs, insistent chanting and looping percussion, pulls you right into those heightened, feverish party atmospheres.