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Reviews

Orchestre 
Poly-Rythmo, ‘The 1st Album’ (Analog Africa)

Benin’s most masterful band follows the March release of their first album in more than 20 years, Cotonou Club, with a reworked, remastered update of their virtually unheard first album. Recorded in Lagos, Nigeria, these four tracks (two of which are ?unreleased alternate versions) sound as wickedly funky today as they must have in 1973. Chicken-scratch guitars and skull-violating wah-wah organ electrify the drum, horn, and cowbell adaptations of the region’s traditional ?vodoun rhythms. It all comes together in the brawny, 12-minute Afrobeat throb of “La La La La.”