Albums
March: 18 albums you need to hear this month
This month's listening sorted
Clap! Clap! 'A Thousand Skies' (Black Acre)
Take a cult Bristolian label and add an African influence from Italian musician Clap! Clap!, and we might just have the best fusion record to kick of 2017 so far. Returning to Black Acre after his Gilles Peterson-approved ‘Tayi Bebba’ LP, Clap! Clap! is now on “the search for new flavours”. Throat-driven chants seep through native percussions on ‘Discessus’, and ‘Nguwe’ feels like a Gqom-on-speed ticket to the tropics, glitches stabbing through Bongeziwe Mabandla’s vocals. ‘Hope’ (featuring OY) breaks things down, while the layers of ‘Ar-Raqis’ and ‘Ode To The Pleiades’ clatter and clang, cultivating the sounds of a rich landscape that are felt globally. Leah Connolly
7/10
