l'Orchestre A-Dakar

Free MP3- Lay Lay by L'Orchestra A-Dakar


One of my favorite things to do with this blog is to give exposure to
new and deserving groups that are just starting to try and get their
music out into the industry. Baz Mattie, one of the two Amsterdam
based musical architects of l'Orchestre A-Dakar, has been
corresponding with me for quite some time now. I have been
consistently impressed with this lovely African/electronica project
and am happy to be sharing a track with you now. I suspect that you
will be hearing much more from this project in the future, just
remember, you heard it here first.


Bio:

What is an African singer from Senegal doing in an electronic
soundscape created by a duo from Amsterdam? The answer: l’Orchestre
A-Dakar.

Baz mattie met Mola Sylla in 2000 during a tour with Chris Hinze, and
was impressed with his distinctive voice and melodies. Out of
curiosity, Mattie began to work on a remix of one of Sylla’s tracks.
On the face of it, Sylla’s voice and Mattie’s electronic music
promised to work well together, but the results were even better than
either of them expected.

Spurred on by this nice surprise, they decided to collaborate
further, creating the tracks on this debut album in the same manner.
Sylla’s demos, in which he accompanied himself on instruments such
as the Mbira and the Xalan, were re-edited and placed in a completely
different context.

Plaintive, earthy vocals by Mola Sylla, sung in Wolof, the language
of Senegal, are fused with a swirling, pulsating dark soundscape of
electronic beats and distortion by Baz Mattie and Frans Molenaar,
from Amsterdam. This is urban music that refuses to be geographically
fixed, and sits well with our ever more cosmopolitan world.
l’Orchestre A-Dakar do not shy away from experimentalism: long
tracks built from a wide sound palette encompassing the above-
mentioned electronic sounds and distortion, as well as modern
classical music, a complete string orchestra and choir. Yet, the
music is never inaccessible, as it unfurls itself slowly, with warmth
and purity of spirit, creating a comfortable cocoon for your mind to
build a succession of pictures. So compelling is this fusion of
disparate elements that you do not even need to understand Wolof to
be drawn in.

This timeless debut CD is the end result of the incredible journey
through the musically imaginative world of the collective,
l’Orchestre A-Dakar.

http://www.orchestre-a-dakar.nl