Of all the bands that have contributed to Crammed Discs’ Congotronics series over the last decade, Kasai Allstars are the one that cast the widest sonic net. It’s built into the band and reflected in their name; they’re allstars because they play in other groups. Five, to be exact, each representing the electric street music of a different ethnicity. They are a cultural melting pot, blending the hovering guitars of Congolese pop music with heavy percussion, electrified likembes (thumb pianos), a couple of different vocal styles, and a seemingly sharp awareness of the way they’re perceived abroad as much as a story as a band.
Beware the Fetish is their second Western release, produced by Vincent Kenis, and it is a sprawling document, clocking in at an hour and 42 minutes. It is, to state the obvious, not the right entry point into the Congotronics series (the first Konono N°1 album probably deserves that distinction), but it offers a lot to explore for anyone looking for more of the peculiar buzz and rumble that characterizes the series. While past entries in the series, including this group’s debut, have had the feel of albums or compilations with carefully honed structures, this one is about as immersive an experience as you’d expect something almost two hours long to be. It’s a well-curated field recording, for all intents, capturing the band in action as it explores its own sound.
This leads to some arresting moments. “As They Walked Into the Forest on a Sunday, They Encountered Apes Dressed as Humans” somehow lives up to its title, the likembes, xylophones and hand drums building into a dark and knotty groove. On nearly every track, the elements of the song move around in the mix as though the microphone is exploring the room to get a different angle on the proceedings. Vocals drift to the forefront and then fall back to reveal a cycling guitar figure or a fuzz-toned likembe. It’s an almost diagrammatic approach to sound; different parts of the diagram shed light on different details.
Listeners shouldn’t come looking for alternative takes on funk and rock, or even anything like a punchy song or arrangement. Those things are all expectations we map onto this music, and none of them are anything like the point of this record. This is an album that asks you to sink into its sounds, takes a left every time you expect it to take a right and moves slowly most of the time, letting things happen rather than forcing them. It’s not quite like anything else, including the other Congotronics releases.
