Across three discs of rough-hewed yet honeyed music, this three-disc set captures the cosmopolitan. A melange of community elders and emboldened youth spill from the brightly lit confines of Sanl’s Volta Photo into the dimly lit nightclubs of Upper. Various Artists: Bobo Yy: Belle poque in Upper Volta. It's an intimate look into the landlocked nation’s pop culture explosion of the 1970s. Titles include "Air Volta" and "Mama Soukous" by Volta Jazz, "He Ya Wannan" by Ouedraogo Youssef, "Si Tu Maime" and "Ram Passomaye" by Coulibaly Tidiani & Dafr Star, "Milaoba" by Les Imbattables Leopards, and "Gentlemen Doromina" by Echo Del Africa. From his studio in central Bobo-Dioulasso, photographer Sory Sanl documented a nation’s transformation from colonial foothold to cosmopolitan oasis. The whole thing's similar to Numero's Light On The Southside set – but maybe even better, as the music here is even more unique – and the images are ones that bring forth a culture we never would have experienced otherwise.
BELLE EPOQUE IN UPPER VOLTA FULL
Consider this Belle Époque (Beautiful Age) an Atlantis of discovery, imagination and innovation found in an unlikely place.One of the most ambitious projects we've ever seen from Numero – and that's saying a lot, given some of their other releases! This package is equal parts cultural document and musical treasure trove – a heavy book full of photos from a time when Upper Volta was stepping past its colonial history, and finding a new cultural identity as an independent nation – presented alongside a rich array of the sounds that were shaping the scene at the time! The cover image has a feel that's maybe older than its 70s vintage – and some of the music does, too – relatively rootsy at points, with heavy percussion, riffing guitar, and jazzy inflections on some of the horns – and a bit less polished and produced than work coming from scenes like Nigeria or South Africa at the same time. The Belle poque or La Belle poque ( French: blepk French for 'Beautiful Epoch') is a period of French and European history, usually dated to between 18711880 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Latin influence drives a mélange of conga percussion and tropical xylophones fused to American rock amplification, wherein sinewy guitar jangles and rumbling bass unfurls both exploratory jazz and Sixties guitar god improvisation. Chicago archivists the Numero Group rounded up 37 songs fusing that swash of international trends to an Afro-Caribbean identity. Various : Bobo Yeye Belle Epoque In Upper Volta (3LP set) (LP, Vinyl record album) - One of the most ambitious projects weve ever seen from Numero and. Borrowing the Beatles' "yeah yeah yeah," the French Yéyé movement mirrored similar pop music movements in neighboring romance language centers (Italy, Spain), and found a global foothold in the success of Serge Gainsbourg in the early Sixties.
The cultural capital, Bobo-Dioulasso, exploded with new bands crisscrossing rock & roll and Afro-Cuban jazz, including Volta Jazz, Dafra Star, Echo Del Africa, and Les Imbattables Léopards, all chronicled on 3-CD overview Bobo Yéyé: Belle Époque in Upper Volta.
A melange of community elders and emboldened youth spill from the brightly lit confines of Sanl's Volta Photo into the dimly lit nightclubs of Upper Volta's cultural capital. Teeming with excitement from the independence of France, the Republic of Upper Volta in Africa became the epicenter of a music revolution in the Seventies. Bobo Yy: Belle Epoque in Upper Volta provides an intimate look into a landlocked nation's pop culture explosion of the 1970s.