Bebey Blues

Born in Cameroon and now resident in Paris, guitarist Indy Dibongue graduated from Mory Kanté's backing band and was mentored by Tony Allen. (Curiously, Bebey Blue's drummer Mario Orsinet plays like he himself has studied the master's technique closely.) Dibongue's second album is built around his heavy ‘burnt guitar’ sound, anchored by Orsinet's busy drumming and the subterranean synth-bass of Federico Squassabia.

Sounding a little like Robin Trower or some other blues-rock power trio transposed to Central Africa, they play two of Dibongue's compositions and four heavily disguised numbers by the multi-talented Cameroonian writer and musician, Francis Bebey. These are book-ended by two ‘Interludes’ in which Bebey himself first talks about and then plays a flute of the pygmy people. You can just about make out some pygmy motifs in the distorted vocals of ‘Bebey Blues’ and you get a hint of Bebey's ‘Fleur Tropicale’ in ‘Mwayé’, where Dibongue's guitar sounds burnt to a crisp. On ‘Môngô’, the tone is more strangulated, allied to a staccato bass hook and a veritable synth storm. All slightly bizarre, then, but ­ provided you like dirty, bluesy electric guitar ­ there's an undeniable power that gets under your skin.