WOMAD

Baka Beyond

From Cameroon, France, Ghana, Sierra Leone, United Kingdom

Cradled in the heart of the African rainforest lives one of the oldest and most sensitive musical cultures on earth. The music of the Baka pygmies is very special and has profoundly influenced all who have come in contact with it. You can hear it within the music of the Baka's neighbours in West Africa and, by a process of diffusion, you can find it in American blues and western popular music.At the beginning of 1992, Martin Cradick, the guitarist in the band Outback, and his wife Su lived with the Baka deep in the forest near the Cameroon-Congo border. The only trappings of modern "civilisation" they took were a tent, some drawing, photographic and recording equipment, a guitar and a mandolin. Much of each day was spent playing music with the Baka or recording their music.Listening to Baka Beyond live is like being transported to a joyful village; it is continually amazing to hear such a richness of sound come from such a small number of people. You get caught up in the complex polyrhythms and carried away by the cascading guitar. Time and time again, I have seen them fire up an audience with the projected happiness of their music, and the roar that demands they return to the stage after the last number is breathtaking. People just can't get enough of them, which is probably why they often set up a solar-powered sound rig and busk around the festival site that they are playing at until the sun runs out.They have followed up 'Spirit of the Forest' with 'The Meeting Pool', a warm and joyful invocation of the rainforest that fills the room it's played in with a tropical lushness, overlaid with sparkling ripples of musical light.