Artist.......: Mim Suleiman
Album........: Tungi
Label........: Running Back
Genre........: Electronic
Catnr........: RBCD01
Source.......: CD (LP)
Rip.date.....: 2011-04-14
Str.date.....: 2010-07-00
Quality......: 247kbps/44.1kHz/Joint Stereo
Url..........: http://www.myspace.com/mimsuleiman
track title time
1. Hebu 6:01
2. Bibi Na Mpu 5:57
3. Mpenzi 5:02
4. Flava 6:13
5. Nyuli 6:08
6. Mingi 5:23
7. Haraka Haileti Baraka 6:05
8. Sherehekeya 6:02
9. Maji 5:51
10. Bibi Na Mpu (Maurice Fulton Dub) 6:00
Runtime 58:42
Size 105.13
Release Notes:
Gerd Janson's Running Back has earned itself a steady reputation as a first-rate
purveyor of robust, glistening disco-houseùwave-making releases like 12-inches
by Tensnake and their reissue of Heaven & Earth's Prescription EP spring
immediately to mind. The label's first full-length release, Zanzibar singer Mim
Suleiman's Tungi, is an inspired curveball from a comparative unknown.
Tungi deals in futuristic Afrobeat, updating the sonic spirit from her native
East Africa with a contemporary electronic palette. Suleiman is no stranger to
the glories of multi-culti collaboration, having previously lent her pipes to
Sheffield groups like the funk-soul outfit Bare Knuckle Soul and Afrobeat troupe
Rafiki Jazz. Somehow then it seems like less than a coincidence that she fell
into the company of one Maurice Fulton, himself a Sheffield resident. A
veritable acid-disco wizard, you may have last seen the man masked as Syclops
for team DFA. On Tungi Fulton brings an eclectic production palette to
underscore Suleiman's salutatory Swahili: it's as good of a meeting of the minds
as one would hope from the lead single "Nyuli," ten extended tracks that form a
bright, breathless excursion into disco, house and tribal rhythms.
Early highlight "Bipi Na Mpu" shows both Mim and Maurice hard at work, tossing
out riff-heavy deep disco laced with Mim's sunny Swahili. Other mash-ups fare
just as wellùsee "Flava"'s Frankenstein stitch between Chicago house and heavy
tribal percussion, with drums in transcontinental dialogue, frenetic Chicago
snares meet flurrying hand toms. On the whole, however, traditional African
percussion is in interestingly short supply here, showing up on "Flava" and in
cameo flourishes on "Mingi." The latter is also where Suleiman vanishes halfway
through only to return as a reverb-drenched spectral multitude, chanting in from
the ether. This is indicative of Suleiman's vocal play, moving across the space
of the stereo field, swooping in for the lead, receding to another instrument in
the mix and at times disappearing altogether. At those points Fulton kicks into
extended workout mode, offering the sort of druggy, microcosmic repetitions you
might except from a guy whose last hit single was called "Where's Jason's K?"
The pastoral "Sherehekeya" is perhaps Tungi's most tightly synergetic number,
where Western and African elements fuse completely together instead of being
stacked tastefully on top of one another. Here Fulton opens up his 808 and lets
it breathe, capped by nice reverse ppsshhts and wobbly bass sequences, sounding
like a modest herd of machine-hearted gazelles grazing on some sunny plain.