The Very Best

Warm Heart of Africa

(Green Owl)

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iTunes

Listen at MOG

Review [8.Oct.2009]

The Very Best could have been just another dance-pop collaboration, springing off the back of the recent uptick in Google alerts for “African traditional music”. With a Fader cover and that pat back-story about the Frenchmen buying a bicycle from the Malawian store owner, things seemed perfectly set up for a familiar internet hype/quick disappointment cycle. But The Very Best Mixtape, an astounding collection of exuberance and, yes, warm heart, bested even M.I.A. at her own game. Remarkably, the group returned with even stronger material on the group’s proper debut. From its opening fanfare, the spreading cymbals and toms herald bright sunshine, which doesn’t let up for almost an hour. Singing in a mixture of Chichewa and English, Mwamwaya’s smooth, gospel inflections and Radioclit’s treble-heavy synths buoy up songs that seem to pull melody after addictive melody out of the air. It’s some heady electro dream, but a dream in which only good things happen, all the time.