Artist: Sabu
Album: Palo Congo
Year: 1957
Ugh. This album was totally not my cup of tea. It's basically 40 minutes of polyrhythmic conga drummng. Occasionally there are some Spanish vocals that enter the mix. Sometimes not. My best guess is that frontman Sabu Martinez was trying to lull the audience into some kind of trance with this album. There were a couple points where I could see myself falling under its hypnotic spell, such as the opener "El Cumbanchero." If I were laying on a beach in Florida sometime in July, I can see how this album might work a little better. On a New York day that struggled to get out of the single-digits, I was not feeling this one so much.
A couple of the tracks here were real endurance tests to get through. The second cut here, "Billumba-Palo Congo," was particularly mind-numbingly boring. Basically it consisted of repeated call-and-response vocals and omnipresent drumming. Imagine some kind of Indian rain dance and you have the right idea. It goes on and on and on and on and on with little variation for a full six minutes. Time I'll never get back.
Simply put, this is not one of the best 1001 albums ever made, and I could've died without hearing it and still lived a completely satisfying life.
Rating: Avoid
No comments:
Post a Comment