New from the legendary Afrobeat/Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen!

New from the legendary Afrobeat/Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen

Watch>> https://vimeo.com/168313487
Listen>> https://soundcloud.com/glitterbeat/afro-haitian-experimental-orchestra-bade-zile

Radio update:
Plays on BBC 6 Music – Giles Peterson, Cerys Matthews and Gideon Coe, BBC World Service (Outlook), BBC Radio Merseyside, Soho Radio, Resonance FM. Multiple regional radio plays.

Press update:
Songlines feature confirmed – August issue
Songlines review confirmed – July issue
The Wire review confirmed, and streaming two tracks on their website. June 2016
Reviews also confirmed in Clash, fRoots, DJ Mag…much more to follow
Press, radio , TV & online publicity by IlkaMedia PR

Spearheaded by the legendary Afrobeat/Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen, the Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra rose out of Allen’s 2014 visit to Haiti where he collaborated with some of the countries most notable singers and percussionists. Be warned, this is not a genteel, business-as-usual “fusion” project. Analog synthesisers and raw psychedelic guitars join the mix yielding an unheard and unholy mixture of Haitian voodoo rhythms, Afrobeat drumming and electronic textures. The album is inspired as much by Krautrock and Sun Ra as Lagos or Port-au-Prince. Flying on inspiration and adrenaline, this is roots music for the global future.

Seven-and-a-half thousand kilometres of cold ocean separate West Africa from Haiti. But music can cover that distance in a heartbeat, crossing the Atlantic to reunite the rhythms and religion of people torn from their homes to be sold into slavery on the Caribbean island. And on its self-titled album, the Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra honours those ghosts of the past even as it walks steadfastly and hopefully into the future. Experimental by name, the band was definitely experimental by nature.

The concept started with Corinne Micaelli, the director of the French Institute in Haiti. She wanted to bring drummer Tony Allen, the power behind Afrobeat and one of modern music’s towering figures, to the island. A performance with Haitian musicians at a major public concert would be perfect. Allen agreed, and Erol Josu, a singer, dancer, voodoo priest, and director of the Haitian National Bureau of Ethnology, helped to recruit local percussionists and singers. They decided, in order for different strands of Haitian music to be represented, that the musicians would be drawn from a cross-section of the country’s foremost bands, including Racine Mapou de Azor, RAM, Erol’s own band, the Yizra’El Band and Lakou Mizik, the group of Sanba Zao, one of Haiti’s leading percussionists and traditional singers. Together, the musicians had just five days to compose and rehearse the set they’d play in the main square of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and broadcast live throughout the country. “Putting it together was complete chaos,” recalls Mark Mulholland, who was drafted in as the Orchestra’s guitarist. “Madness. We were all in this tiny room, playing. We had 10 percussionists from all of Haiti’s top bands. Then there was Tony, Olaf Hund on keyboards, and Jean-Philippe Dary, an old friend of Tony’s, on bass. He became the de facto musical director. The sound was overwhelming.” The music grew organically from long jams, some initiated by Allen and the other Western musicians, built around Allen’s Afrobeat rhythms and the grooves from Dary’s bass, like the eerie psychedelic dream of “Chay La Lou.” “I’d find a riff and a few notes for the songs, but I tried to keep it simple,” Mulholland says. “The other songs came from the Haitian musicians. They grew out of voudou rhythms and a chant. All we had to do was put in some breaks. Honestly, I don’t think any of us knew what to expect when we began.”

What emerged from those long, hot sessions were a series of tracks with roots on both sides of the Atlantic, compelling layers of subtle polyrhythms that bridge centuries and cultures. Relentless grooves become the foundation for soaring, utterly modern melodies like the swirling, electronica-fuelled “Salilento” or the Afro Vocoder ritual sound of “Yanvalou” that’s inspired as much by Krautrock and Sun Ra as Lagos or Port-au-Prince. Flying on inspiration and adrenaline, it’s roots music for a global future. The music is alive with the sense of spontaneity and adventure, the members supporting and pushing each other, diving headlong into the music and creating something that stands outside geography and genre. “I think the album captures the spirit of all of us together in that room,” Mulholland says proudly. “It’s anarchic and energetic. And I really believe it’s good, it’s honest, it’s new. It’s different. It was an experiment that worked.” From the past to the future, it’s a sweep of music to grab and shake the listener. And proof that beautiful, dangerous music can rise out of chaos.