Founded in 2003 by Piscko Crane, the “eco-friendly, Afro-futuristic” Congolese punk collective Fulu Miziki have amassed an international following for their industrious take on the region’s “rumba”—guitar-driven big-band music inspired by Afro-Cuban sounds. In response to a waste-management crisis in the country’s capital, Kinshasa, the group crafts their own instruments and full-body stage garb out of discarded junk—hence their name, which roughly translates from Lingala as “music from the garbage.”
Until now, the band has been content to focus on their futuristic onstage pageantry, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought them into the studio for the first time. While their debut EP, Ngbaka, is first and foremost a party record, it’s tinged with an undercurrent of urgency, imploring the listener to shake their ass in one breath and proclaiming “the end of the world” in the next. The juxtaposition reflects the crossroads at which Fulu Miziki operates: rooted in the celebratory rumba music of their hometown but influenced by the experimental, EDM-inspired Nyege Nyege scene thriving in Uganda, where the band moved in late 2019.
The foreboding atmosphere of tracks like “Lokito,” which teems with rusty, mechanical snarls, is the product of Fulu Miziki’s recent embrace of electronic production. Isolating and refining samples of each jerry-can drum or repurposed PVC pipe enhances the plasticity of their already-plastic instruments. The process recalls the upcycled sound design on Matmos’ Plastic Anniversary, though Fulu Miziki is more interested in rhythmic ingenuity than in manipulating their sources to create unearthly timbres.
Opting for electronic arrangements highlights the complexity of the band’s work, especially on Ngbaka’s instrumental cuts. “Mokili Makambo” plays like a one-to-one recreation of a Fulu Miziki live jam, but the clean mix allows for more room between moving parts. Twangy guembri—a traditional three-stringed bass guitar, which Fulu Miziki fashion out of computer casing—pinballs between a gauntlet of competing percussion before giving way to a stuttering brass melody. Tension builds as more drums shuffle into the fray. By the song’s conclusion, each measure is so densely packed that it blurs into a delirious reverie.
Without an audience’s energy to feed off, Ngbaka’s more vocal-driven songs aren’t always as engaging as they are onstage, where band members volley call-and-response verses. In the studio, Fulu Mizki’s isolated vocal takes can’t quite capture the hypnotic effect of those rich, serpentine rounds. “Toko Yambana,” which draws imagery from apocalyptic flood mythos, is skeletal to a fault, decorating a frugal four-on-the-floor kick with a fluttering tom loop and nebulous synth pads.
“Bivada,” Fulu Miziki’s ode to the laborers who keep the markets of Kinshasa running, overcomes studio limitations by toying with as many vocal effects as possible. Arpeggiated synths knot together as echoing chants emerge from all angles within the stereo field, Auto-Tuned choruses flickering wildly. It’s here that Fulu Miziki look furthest into the future, while still holding firm to their frenetic, highly collaborative sound. They’ve spent nearly two decades molding trash in their own image; Ngbaka extends their sculptures to a new medium. Though digitally processed and precisely arranged, their reanimation of the immaterial sounds as ramshackle and scrappy as ever.
