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Sample Track 1:
"Bizarre Love Triangle" from Occidental Brothers Dance Band International
Sample Track 2:
"Odo Sanbra" from Occidental Brothers Dance Band International
Layer 2
The Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, The Blasting Company

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LA Weekly, The Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, The Blasting Company >>

A most worthy new hybrid, the superfunky Occidental Brothers Dance Band International brings together luminaries of Chicago's underground rock and jazz worlds with stars of the Ghanian highlife scene. This is a tough-minded and truthful mixing of disparately related styles which, while hitting hard on classic Central and West African dance music such as soukous or the mesmerizing Ashante style of Sikyi highlife, along with rumba and dry guitar (dry guitar?), brings to trad Afro sounds newer progressive strains from the American and British POV. (You gotta hear their clatteringly propulsive take on New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle.") Most of frontman/trumpeter Kofi Cromwell's lyrics are performed in the Ghanaian Fante or Twi dialects, a tonality that well suits his growling, percussive vocal larks and bantering showmanship. The group was founded by ex-Zincs and Edith Frost guitarist Nathaniel Braddock; he's joined by sax man Greg Ward, Ghanian drummer Asamoah Rambo and Puerto Rico's Joshua Ramos on upright bass. Do yourself a favor and pick up this ace band's new disc Odo Sanbra. 06/17/09 >> go there
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