Cross cultural dialogue is very much what World music is about at the moment. It was during Glastonbury in 2007 when the fruits of an ongoing project, Africa Express, revealed themselves to an enchanted crowd. Some of West Africa's top artists played alongside Western artists, sharing and cross pollinating their experiences on stage. Thanks in part due to Damon Albarn's adventure in 2002 to Mail, his awakening to depths of Malian music and the fruits of that exploration, his album Mali Music, inspiring a lot more interest in the West African music scene. So, it is in the continuing of that tradition that Dub Collosus's, In a Town called Addis, adds a chapter in the cultural book being mapped out in World music. The album is an Ethio-Jamaican exchange. Music is varied and features traditional Ethiopian instrumentation set against dub basslines, right the way through to entire tracks of solo instrumentation, and then off again into funk and minimalist grooves that will just keep you bouncing on your knees. First rate recording means that you keep having to listen to tracks again and again so you ears can focus on another area of the sound and absorb it completely. The sample, here, captures to me the whole essence of this album, one of celebration, pushing musical boundaries and cultural diversification. Don't miss this one!
