Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

Every so often an album, not matter how hotly tipped, manages to knock you off your feet. Warm Heart Of Africa is one of those records. It compounds expectations, I have to say when I heard a British/Malawian singer was teaming up with French/Swedish producers Radioclit to take on the sounds of Africa and Malawian culture, I was excited yet apprehensive. I was expecting a beautiful pulsating art house piece, alive with the spirit and vibrancy of Africa, but too detached from Western culture to be a proper pop record, but how wrong I was. The Very Best Of take the best of both worlds the glorious a cappella harmonies of classical African song and chant, pounding drum tribal drum arrangements, a real African gospel flavour, and the Afrobeat sound and they blend it together with the sleek electro pop of the nineteen eighties. Now I'm sure at least 50% of you just cringed, and on paper I would too, but the sounds intertwine divinely to forge a gorgeous form of near hymnal pop music. It's a remarkable achievement, they made an album so defiantly African yet it has all the cosy warmth of Paul Simon and dare I say it...Phil Collins?

The albums cross over potential is best demonstrated by the infectious and sweet title track, it lives up to its name, it's warm cosy and deceptive, and it feels like it could have slotted onto a Vampire Weekend LP, infact Erza Koenig's guests on the track and slides seamlessly into the mix. It feels like Vampire Weekend, only better, the melodies are more memorising and the beat infinitely more danceable than anything the US's primo scene leaders have managed to muster. Warm Heart Of Africa's real strength lies it variety, the album seems to hop genres at will, one moment it's a baroque pop piece, the next moment it's a hymnal chant, or a slice of super sized eighties synth pop, then it's a dance floor slayer or a wild Rain Dance with M.I.A spitting rhymes over unrelenting tribal drums. Yet while it may hop genres and soundscapes at will, it's all tied together thematically by Africa itself. The album is a road map, it's an album that lifts you away with it's ethereal melodies, it's an existential experience, you feel transported, it's not just an album of charming music, it's album of great visuals, wide open spaces and unending imagination. The beautiful arrangements make you visualize, you'll see great sun scorched landscapes on Angonde before the blaring electro siren of Julia transports you instantly to a dark underground night spot in buzzing shanty town. Of course the experience will be rudely interrupted by a U2 Stadium sized twinkling riff and a set of Graceland keys of Mfumu a minute later.

It's hard to pick out individual highlights on an album so fluid where track after track blends gorgeously into the next until your so far removed from your starting point it's almost forgotten, like a fleeting day dream, it leaves a powerful lasting emotional impression even if the details are a little too fuzzy to recall. Yet Ntendi Uli manages to grab the attention, a slick squelchy electro beat is dropped effortlessly, and for a minute you feel like your hearing Malawi's answer to Drop It Like It's Hot. Only it's much more than that, the track grows and evolves behind a fraught and powerful vocal while a dynamic and addictive beat that James Murphy and Richard X would be proud of begins to layer. It's a master-stroke, it's the past, the present and the future all at once, it's a culture clash without conflict, it's simply sublime. Ntendi Uli is only matched in brilliance by the joyous explosion of Kamphopo, it's beyond infectious, it's the happy heart and soul of Africa free from turmoil, it's a steel drum driven celebration, with a irresistible hook. Quite simply Kamphopo is the best pure pop son I've heard all year.

There is little left to be said, Warm Heart Of Africa is a unabashed triumph. Following in the footsteps of M.I.A's Kala it continues to redefine world music, as something assessable, something groovy and most of all something that's utterly irresistible. Warm Heart... never ceases to charm, it's chocked full of enthusiasm and hope. This is one of those albums that just makes you smile from the first minute to the last second, and while we can all marvel at the beautiful compositions and gorgeous arrangements, it's the care free spirit that steals the show. Warm Heart Of Africa refuses to be defined, it's a truly multicultural record it jumps from genre to genre at will, it has it's roots on the streets of Camden, in the uber cool night clubs of Paris, it nods to the goofy electro-pop chic of Scandinavia and of course the glorious landscape, culture and peoples of Africa. Never has an album been more appropriately titled, in just under an hour The Very Best Of have shown us the Warm Heart Of Africa and for that we owe them a great debt of gratitude.

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend, Kala - M.I.A