When Guinean President Sékou Touré, a huge music fan, was elected in 1958, he issued a decree for musicians to focus on "authenticité," or music grounded in traditional African folk. That mandate meant his government created national bands featuring the finest players. So when in 1972, Touré learned that Balla et Ses Balladins had relieved trumpeter-bandleader Balla Onivogui of his duties (he was replaced by trombonist Pivi Moriba), the future despot intervened and had the government reinstate Onivogui. (To better understand this situation, imagine if President Bush, upon hearing that Scott Weiland had been kicked out of Velvet Revolver, issued an executive mandate restoring the frontman.) Balla et Ses Balladins' The Syliphone Years, the fourth entry in Sterns Africa's handy two-disc overviews of such "authenticity" in Guinean music, focuses on one of the country's greatest groups, whether helmed by Balla or Pivi. Such politics aside, it also cements the fact that for a generation, this tiny West African nation recorded some of the most sublime music of the century, despite the fact that it was often in praise of Touré or the youth wing of the ruling party.
Culling various B-sides and album cuts recorded between 1968 and 1980, the set merely skims the surface of the band's long career. But from the griot of "Bandian" to the traces of Cuban rhumba ("Yo Te Contres Maria") and Fela's ubiquitous Afrobeat ("Wilikabo"), the orchestra sparkles throughout. The nimble guitar of Sekou "Le Docteur" Diabaté refreshes like summer showers on the expansive groove of "Sara '70," while on "Moi Ça Ma Fout" the band teems like fire ants, roiling and furious. The in-depth notes by Graeme Counsel deem this track "African punk rock," but who knew socialist propaganda could sound so golden?
