Konono Nº1 - Congotronics
On African trance music, going home for the holidays, and some thoughts on electronic music.
Distorted, blasted, blown-out recordings of thumb pianos make an unlikely soundtrack for gazing at Christmas lights. If you're a sentimentalist, you're more likely to go with tried 'n true chestnuts like something from Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole. If you're a bit more hip and with it, maybe you'll choose The Beach Boys or the sainted patron of modern Christmas, Sufjan Stevens. If you want to split the difference, there's Handel's "Messiah" or any number of surprisingly excellent jazz, soul, and funk Christmas albums. No matter who you are, electric likembe's are a strange choice for walking in a winter wonderland.
Yet that's exactly what ended up on my headphones during one of the very few trips back to the place of my birth since abandoning that rusty barge nearly two decades ago. In some year i can no longer recall, during the window between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I found myself staying at my former in-laws, camping out in a former-office-turned-bedroom, as it had become obvious during previous visits that I did a lot better with my biological family when not sleeping under the same roof. After everyone had gone to bed, I would go on one of my endless walks around my hometown, smoke cigarettes, listen to music, and think.
I found myself walking beside the dark, turgid waters of Cady Ditch in Griffith, Indiana
I found myself walking beside the dark, turgid waters of Cady Ditch in Griffith, Indiana as i dropped the metaphorical needle on Congrotronics, the second album from Congolese collective Konono Nº1 to receive international distribution. As i meandered aimlessly down cul-de-sacs and subdivisions of post-war tract housing decked out with hand-me-down blow forms and vintage bulb lights, while rustbelt Buicks and Chevys injected the arctic air with rich petroleum exhaust, the impossibly complex rhythms transported me away, like some mythical magic carpet, as music had been doing since i was a teenager, drifting me away from those mean streets to somewhere sunnier and more sweltering.
If i were to have to guess, i would assume this was somewhere around 2007. Even at that point, i was beginning to sense something was a bit off in terms of electronic music. Instead of art, creativity, imagination, and personality, electronic music was feeling increasingly like a product - generic and interchangeable chart fodder designed for Beatport instead of real life. Things were too sterile, too perfectly polished, carefully quantized until every molecule of individuality and surprise was sucked out.
In contrast, Konono Nº1's handmade, lofi electronics - electrified likembes, a variant of the mbira or thumb piano, with crude pickups run through homemade amps - and junkyard raves were a revelation. A little more than 15 years later, they're even moreso. The electric likembes sound like 8-bit cubist Atari sound sculptures while the collective shouts and exuberant whistles radiate pure joy. Konono Nº1 are a total party, and everybody's invited.
Congotronics was my soundtrack and my salvation on this particular trip. It was an immediate reminder that i had escaped the cruel, razor-sharp mandibles of alcoholism and lived to tell the tale. Despite half-a-decade of very long, dark nights of the soul, i had found my way back to the light. My purpose of hearing, making, and sharing as much music as humanly possible had been restored to me.
I think of those plastic Santas and colorful glass bulbs every time i hear Konono Nº1. In some ways my life is very different than when i was walking down suburban side streets past silent train tracks. I live even further from the Midwest than i did when i was listening to Congotronics on a hand-me-down iPod. I'm much more established as both a critic and an artist in my own right. I'm nearly making enough money to be a real person. In other ways, it felt like nothing had changed at all, listening to Congolese handmade electronic music on my way to hear some of my friends from Heterodox Records at last week's Live in the Depths on Mississippi Ave. here in Portland. The need for personal, singular electronic music feels more pressing than ever. So does the drive to hear more music of every variety from outside of North America and Europe. Listening back, Konono Nº1 sound frighteningly ahead of their time. They had all the answers to things we didn't even yet know were problems in 2007. It's time to listen up.
This piece is dedicated to Linda Karlstedt, may she Rest In Peace. Thanks for always making me feel so welcome, Mrs. K.
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