The deep-digging for obscure sounds that marked the out put of specialty labels in both the United States and England during the early 2000s thankfully wasn't limited to merely Western musical traditions. The ZANZIBARA series from Buda Music is identical in approach to their famed ETHIOPIQUES series, but covering the distinct sounds of Eastern Africa's Zanzibar coast rather than Ethiopia. VOLUME 3, in what can only be called a true blessing for the rest of the world, chronicles music being made during the 1960s in Tanzania. A surprisingly standard assembly of drums, bass, guitar, and horns, produces grooves that meld Caribbean melodicism with African polyrhythms into languid, yet effervescent pan-global R&B unlike almost anything being made at the time.
Professional Reviews
Dirty Linen (p.51) - "Gentle and thoroughly danceable....The sound is crystalline as the music itself, thanks to the surprisingly good recordings made by Radio Tanzania..."
