DRC Music – If You Wish to Stay Awake (feat. Washiba)
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A bunch of producers head to the Congo to make an album in support of Oxfam. If this were the 80s, we’d be subjected to “We Are the World” or the feel-good hogwash of Paul Simon’s Graceland. But this is the early 2010s and the producers involved are Damon Albarn, Dan the Automator, Actress, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Jneiro Jarel, Richard Russell of XL Recordings and a few others. Though not as adventurously hybridized as I’d like, the tunes they’ve made as DRC Music are inspiring. They augment the local sound with electronic accents, and though there are interludes of lightness and whimsy, the standout songs are dark and heady—appropriately so given the conflict in the region, rather than the cliché “unhinged joy” that Nick Neyland apparently expected in his Pitchfork review.
There isn’t another song as perfect as “Hallo,” on which Albarn nails a delicate reggae-influenced vocal line in duet with Nelly Liyemge, but there are a number of inventive pieces that hint at current house, techno, and hip-hop styles while existing in another realm. “If You Wish to Stay Awake” has all the poise and savvy of a Soul Clap rework with a sharper, more disjointed edge.
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DRC Music – If You Wish to Stay Awake (feat. Washiba) [download] [buy and support Oxfam's work in the Congo]
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