CD: "CONGOTRONICS" BY KONONO NO. 1; CRAMMED DISC

RELEASE: SEPT. 27

STYLE: WORLD ELECTRONICA

The band: Konono No. 1 may be something you didn't even know was missing from your collection. Its music is based on the likembe, an African thumb-piano related to the mbira and kalimba.

Some 25 years ago, in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, one Mawangu Mingiedi organized fellow rural emigres to amplify traditional village likembe music for the urban setting. Music there is often a do-it-yourself affair, and the group scavenged telephone wire and car parts such as alternator magnets to create pickups and microphones driven through colonial-era megaphones. The story goes that the inevitable distortion in this amplification effort was initially unintended but soon embraced.

The music: Through some fortuitous musical alignment, this afro-folk electronica is broadly accessible to a genre-crossing swath of listeners. The sound easily resembles the pulsing grooves of Detroit techno, perhaps because the repeating cycles of likembe music are traditionally used for inducing a trance to commune with ancestors.

The addition of distortion to the likembe recalls the timbre of synths or electric guitars, but the buzzing isn't a western contamination. Many African thumb-pianos (lamellophones) have vibrating metal rings or gourd-resonators that convince many first-time listeners that they are hearing an electronic sound. Hence, the band has embraced distortion as essential, as well as retained the non-western pentatonic tuning of the instruments and call-and-response vocals. The adjective "tribal" is often hastily applied, but here it is an honest designation, for even ethnomusicology geeks will hear the clear affinity with the classic field recordings of Hugh Tracey more than 40 years ago.

The difference with Konono No. 1 is its accessibility, whether the listener is a fan of techno, world, experimental or jazz.

The album opens with "Lufuala Ndonga," a crushing juxtaposition of energetic chanting with the relentless technolike drive of multiple likembe in registers from bass to soprano. The pace is brought down on the next few tracks, and the likembes are featured alone on the very chilled "Kule Kule," a contemplative, trance-inducing reverie that could convert even a die-hard Philip Glass fan. The energy returns with the drums interlocking triumphantly like clockwork on "Paradiso," the one live track, recorded at the club of the same name in Amsterdam.

My take: This album features traditional music played on traditional instruments through handmade low-fi amplification, and, happily, the nearly impossible result is a thoroughly modern sound that doesn't compromise one iota of authenticity. This album is worth the leap. At best, you'll discover a love for a new genre and will eagerly await the January release of "Congotronics 2," featuring Konono No. 1 and six more Congolese bands. At worst, you'll find some great music for dancing.

Robert Uyeyama, a University of Hawa'i-Manoa graduate student, plays in the local band Mabanzi Marimba.