Undomondo’s taking another break for a week or so, mainly because I need to work on my MA thesis and the net’s being a black hole of distraction. In the meantime there are two muxtape’s that you can check both by our colleague Darita from Istanbul, the first is his own, and one for dugumkume a blog he co-writes. Both have in his words “selected obscure electronic, disco music from 1978-1986″, some great gems here and there.

Anyways, I’m a huge fan of Michigan’s Nomo, No.7 on my last.fm after a total of ~110K listens, which means something. I’ve been listening to their new one Ghost Rock for a month or so and it’s simply another amazing album under their belt. I first heard the term Post Fela Afrobeat while reading reviews of their previous album “New Tones” on the net. I’ve never thought of deconstructing the link between Fela and afrobeat and how we take his form for granted. Now I love Fela and his afrobeat, I even love his clones, but Nomo is a different beast altogether.

The 8 piece Ann Arbor orchestra tested me with their innovations on the first two tracks, which wasn’t remotely what I was expecting, seems I was content with the “post-Fela” on “New Tones” while the band was hell bent on destroying any traces of it. (Not in a bad/unrespectful way though).

They’ve found a habitable space where it seems to be some kind of a big band afrofunk but at the same time it’s dark and psychedelic, severing its ties with the traditional African music and incorporating contemporary ideas & methods.

What I’ve chosen for you to listen is two songs which are more in vein with the previous album, Rings with its majestic horn riff on galloping beats, and the title track Ghost Rock with an equally infectious horn section and rocking beat, although these still sound very very fresh. I don’t know if the horns are composed by one person or the whole band, but I’ve yet to see a band as successful as Nomo that can come up with tunes as complex and memorable as these.

Out on Ubiquity,a serious contender for top 10 of 2008 and thankfully equally felt by Pitchfork with a whopping 8.3. Don’t miss the album and the remaining dates on their US tour!

Nomo – Rings
Nomo – Ghost Rock