Ibibio Sound Machine - Live at Earth '2020

Tracks list

“I need you to be sweet like sugar,” sings ISM frontwoman Eno
Williams on the first track of Live at Earth, and her band’s high-tech,
cosmopolitan revision of end-of-century West African pop has certainly always
been sweet enough. But it’s worth noting that sugar comes in two states,
refined… and raw. The studio records of the band fit the former
description, but thus live album hews firmly to the latter, arriving with a
forceful rock ’n’ soul impact. Guitarist Alfred Kari Bannerman,
once of veteran Ghanaian Afro-rock band Osibisa, steps to the fore in this
respect, adding substantial muscle to tracks like the amazing “The Chant
(Iquo Isang)”, off 2017’s Uyai. Recorded last fall at the London
unit’s biggest hometown show to date, the intense energy circulating
between ISM and their crowd is unmistakable. It would have been nice if their
distinctive post-punk number “Joy (Idaresit)”, also off Uyai, had
made the set-list cut here – the material is mostly off last
year’s Doko Mien – but this is nonetheless a striking and
satisfying new side to a proven provider of great sounds.

01 - I Need You to Be Sweet Like Sugar (Nnge Nte Suka) (Live)
02 - The Talking Fish (Asem Usem Iyak) (Live)
03 - Nyak Mien (Live)
04 - The Chant (Iquo Isang) (Live)
05 - Wanna Come Down (Live)
06 - Just Go Forward (Ka I So) (Live)
07 - I Know That You’re Thinking About Me (Live)
08 - Tell Me (Doko Mien) (Live)
09 - Give Me a Reason (Live)
10 - Power of 3 (Live)
11 - Lets Dance (Yak Inek Unek) (Live)
12 - Trance Dance (Live)
13 - Encore (Live)
14 - Basquiat (Live)

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