Electricity

Album review

Electricity, the fourth album from London's Ibibio Sound Machine is a dazzling mélange of eighties disco, African highlife guitar, and squishy, futuristic synths that would not be out of place on the Parliament/Funkadelic Mothership.  With English synthpop band Hot Chip in the production booth, this new sound-world is evident right from the first track, "Protection From Evil," where vocalist Eno Williams jumps into the Giorgio Moroder-esque electronic beat with lyrics deep from her subconscious, all while the sound is thickening with crunchy keyboards and 808 beats.  Hot Chip's influence continues on tracks like  "Casio (Yak Nda Nda)" filled with fuzz-laden keyboards and whiplash hi-hat accents.  Williams' mashed-up English/Ibibio lyrics (she was born in London, but raised in the southern part of Nigeria where the language is spoken) communicate everything you need to know; no translations needed but batteries very much included. The title track feels like a condensed history of dance and pop music's last four decades, from the opening march rhythms that are reminiscent of Eddy Grant's huge hit, to the talking-drum inspired break in the middle that takes us from Ibiza to Nigeria. In this time of forced isolation, Electricity is the record for when shiny happy people are emerging from their cocoons to dance to the music that moves them, with each beat from Nairobi, Brixton, Milan or Rio breaking down barriers between borders, generations, genres and human hearts. © Rick Banales/Qobuz