Nihiloxica - Kaloli '2020

Tracks list

After a searing intro on Nyege Nyege Tapes tipped by Aphex Twin, Uganda’s
Nihiloxica group their possessed percussive energies in a killer full length for
Crammed Discs - home to the band’s spiritual brethren Konono No.1, Kasai
Allstars, Ndagga Rhythm Force.

Equal parts drivingly rhythmic and ruggedly dissonant, Nihiloxica’s sound
has won over swathes of festival and club crowds overt the past few years with a
swingeing blend of traditional drumming and noisy electronic shredding that
arguably makes any other band on the line-up pale in comparison. After two tapes
on the trail-blazing Nyege Nyege Tapes in 2017 and 2019, the sextet turn it out
hot and heavy on Belgium’s Crammed discs, an ideal and sympathetic home
for their rooted but experimental sound which comes off like the metallic klang
of Konono No.1 spliced with a punkish adjunct to Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga
Rhythm Force, but firmly located in various Ugandan musical traditions.

Cannily named after the Lugandan word for the Marabou Stork - a properly fugly
carrion bird covered in boils which is also Uganda’s unofficial national
bird - ‘Kaloli’ is a canny metaphor for the band’s sound; at
once ravenous and gangling, but effortlessly entrancing when in flight. As such
the album feels like a fearsome creature engorged on scrapped electronic
detritus, spreading its wings in 11 semi-cyborgian ways that bring together the
Nilotika Cultural Ensemble’s four expert Bugandan drummers with their two
UK member’s stripped down trap drums and plugged inputs. 

Where previous outings were recorded at Nyege Nyege’s Boutiq Studio in
Kampala, this one captures the band recording at Bradford, UK’s Hohm
Studio in the days after supporting Aphex Twin. Gassed on that experience, they
commit a sprawling but tight LP that conceptually tours the rich rhythms of
Uganda, from the Darwin swerve of ‘Giunjkola’ style from Central
Uganda, to the rolling swang of ‘Busoga’ from the country’s
east, and the dread trample of ‘Bwola’ from northern Uganda, all
heightened in tension by pq’s swarming psychedelic production to
incendiary effect on the lead single ‘Black Kaveera’, and lushly
dubbed out in ‘Mukaagafeero’. 

Tracklist:
01. Nihiloxica - Supuki (5:59)
02. Nihiloxica - Tewali Sukali (5:58)
03. Nihiloxica - 190819 (0:55)
04. Nihiloxica - Gunjula (6:21)
05. Nihiloxica - Black Kaveera (5:02)
06. Nihiloxica - 160819 (0:46)
07. Nihiloxica - Mukaagafeero (5:46)
08. Nihiloxica - Busoga (5:39)
09. Nihiloxica - Salongo (6:14)
10. Nihiloxica - Bwola (5:32)
11. Nihiloxica - 170819 (3:44)

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