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Concert Review
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Austin Statesman, Concert Review >>
SXSW review: Sauti Sol
From: Nairobi, Kenya
Where: Copa, Thursday 9:30
The sound mix at Copa was atrocious, with the bottom end cranked so loud that it was difficult to make out the liquid lines of the acoustic and electric guitar during Sauti Sol’s set. Even worse, the quartet’s beautiful vocal blend was largely drowned in the morass of bass bouncing off hard surfaces — walls made of brick and the long mirror along most of one side of the room.
The four members of Sauti Sol started out in high school as an a cappella group, and the effortless cohesion of their harmonies was apparent whenever you could make them out. Singing a driving, danceable R&B number, they sounded a little like Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (minus Teddy Pendergrass), smooth as glass yet with distinctive vocal textures. On another tune, their voices wove around each other in a lively filagree, but it was supremely frustrating having to strain to make out the elegant shapes. The frontmen’s supple, energetic dancing was always fun to watch, but it was torture knowing there were so many interesting things going on in the music somewhere underneath the incessant pummeling.
The original plan was to stick around for the whole night of African artists, but the pounding of the bass was even more headache-inducing for DJ Chief Boima’s spinning between sets — even with ear plugs in, and cowering in a far corner of the back patio. Things hadn’t gotten any better when the next musicians took the stage, and I was starting to lose the will to live, so I abandoned the notion of seeing the much-anticipated Seun Kuti & Egypt 80. 03/16/12 >> go there
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