The third instalment of the fusion project involving Kenyan musicians and British electronica band Elmore Judd is the most cheerful and commercial, if least experimental. Many of the best tracks on their second album, recorded in London, were dominated by the nyatiti lyre of Joseph Nyamungu, but now the band have travelled to his Luo homeland in western Kenya and he takes a less prominent role, despite his gently drifting playing and singing on Owour Won Gembe.
Elsewhere, much of the album is an exuberant travelogue dominated by African percussion and keyboard riffs. I Made You/You Made Me is a gloriously upbeat exercise in African pop, written by singer and keyboard player Jesse Hackett for his daughter, while the pounding dance songs include Luo Land, and Changaa Attack, featuring a chorus of fishermen’s children. It was a clearly a great trip – despite the gunfire effects on (Nairobi) Too Hot.
