Nyanza

This is the third album from this Kenya-London collaboration and it's the most satisfying and varied set they’ve created yet. It's beautifully produced – while there's no production credit given, I would hazard a guess it's their drummer Tom Skinner at the controls. And it's the outstanding sound quality that is, in particular, what will steer it towards the top of those album of the year lists.

From Kenya come Joseph Nyamungu, virtuoso on the nyatiti (plucked lyre of western Kenya's Luo people) and percussionist Charles Owoko. The London musos consist of Tom Skinner and brothers Jesse (vocals and keyboards) and Louis Hackett (bass). For this album they took off on a trip up-country in Nyanza province, close to Lake Naivasha in south-west Kenya. They recorded in studios, villages and rain storms – and often under the influence of chaanga (aka‘ Kill Me Quick’), a local beverage that is rumoured to include jet fuel and battery acid as active ingredients.

The resultant soundscape bristles with the voices of villagers and the sounds of the elements and encounters with Luo traditional music, dub, shangaan and techno. Nyamungu's and Jesse Hackett's vocals take divergent paths through the fecund musical undergrowth, and it's well worth making the journey with them through tropical dance floor pleasers, deep trance teasers and the beautiful ‘I Made You/You Made Me’, a gorgeous song in celebration of Jesse's daughter.