Concert info

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Blick Bassy's new album 'Hongo Calling' is available on 26 April

Blick Bassy takes us on a real, live adventure, from Central Africa -- via Benin, Senegal and Cape Verde -- to Brazil with his second personal CD 'Hongo Calling'. He invites us to travel with him through very different landscapes of sound, eyes shut, as if in the trance induced by “idingo” ceremonies, the ancestral ritual of his Bassa people. So, we follow, through space and time, the different variations of “hongo,” traditional music related to the “assiko” that marks the rhythms of village life, through good times and bad. From one track to another, we meet some flamboyant musicians ... but from the first to the last note, all we really hear is “some Blick Bassy”...




There are the inevitable comparisons of Blick Bassy with some of his compatriots: Manu Djibango (with whom Blick often played, Guy N’Sangue (the marvellous bassist who provides support throughout this album) or Richard Bona, who functions as guitarist, percussionist and co-arranger on “Likanda” ... each, in their own way, has enriched world music by integrating a formidable portion of the musical heritage of Cameroon. But Blick is the one who, without a doubt, will live in posterity for having internationalised the unknown musical repertory of the Bassa, as Francis Bebey or Manu Djibango have done for the Doula, neighbours of the Bassa.


'Hongo Calling' will be released on 26 April by World Connection. For the ones who does not like to wait, a free bonus track is already available to listen and download via Blick's bandcamp page.

http://blickbassy.bandcamp.com/