Search - Wenge Musica :: Bouger Bouger

This 1988 recording is classic stuff, recorded just as soukous was peaking as the high-tech dance music of the moment. The bass is fat, the guitars shimmer, and the ensemble vocals are sweet and alluring. Guitarist Alain Makeba defines the space the music dwells in, with both leads and fills that are perfect. His melodic sense is simple, almost sparse, with never a wasted note. Today the cheap synthesizers sound almost quaint, but they don't mar the production because the group is just so solid. This is a lean, young band we are hearing here, competing with the big boys like Viva la Musica and a host of Zaiko Langa Langas, cutting the tight, clean edge that their elders were rapidly forgetting as better technology made for too easy a time in the studio. Wenge Musica were the new kids in town, and they had no choice but to play it close to the bone, and it worked! --Louis Gibson