The brand new release by Analog Africa is the great Dur Dur Band from Somalia . Available on 2xCD w/12-page booklet with liner notes & pictures and Gatefold De Luxe with liner notes & pictures (3x140g)
This triple LP / double CD reissue of the band's first two albums � the first installment in a three-part seriesdedicated to Dur-Dur Band � represents the first fruit of Analog Africa's long labours to bring this extraordinarymusic to the wider world. Remastered from the best available audio sources, these songs have never soundedbetter. Some thirty years after they first made such a splash in the Mogadishu scene, they have been freedfrom the wobble and tape-hiss of second and third generation cassette dubs, to reveal a glorious mix ofpolychromatic organs, nightclub-ready rhythms and hauntingly soulful vocals.
In addition to two previously unreleased tracks, the music is accompanied by extensive liner notes, featuringinterviews with original band members, documenting a forgotten chapter of Somalia's cultural history. Beforethe upheaval in the 1990s that turned Somalia into a war-zone, Mogadishu, the white pearl of the IndianOcean, had been one of the jewels of eastern Africa, a modern paradise of culture and commerce. In the musicof the Dur-Dur band � now widely available outside of Somalia � we can still catch a fleeting glimpse of thatgolden age.
When Analog Africa founder Samy Ben Redjeb arrived in Mogadishu in November of 2016, he was informed byhis host that he would have to be accompanied at all times by an armed escort while in the country. The nextmorning, a neighbour and former security guard put on a military uniform, borrowed an AK-47 from somewhereand escorted him to Via Roma, an historical street in the heart of Hamar-Weyne, the city's oldest district.Although previous Analog Africa releases have demonstrated a willingness to go more than the extra air-mile totrack down the stories behind the music, the trip to Mogadishu was a musical journey of a different kind. It wasthe culmination of an odyssey that had started many years earlier.
In 2007 John Beadle, a Milwaukee-based musicologist and owner of the much loved Likembe blog, uploaded acassette he had been handed twenty years earlier by a Somalian student. The post was titled 'Mystery SomaliFunk' and it was, in Samy's own words, some of the deepest funk ever recorded. The cassette seemed tocredit these dense, sonorous tunes to the legendary Iftin Band. But initial contact with Iftin's lead singersuggested that the 'mystery funk' may have actually been the work of their chief rival, Dur-Dur, a young bandfrom the 80s.
Back then, Mogadishu had been a very different place.On the bustling Via Roma, people from all corners of society would gather at the Bar Novecento and CafeCappucino, watch movies at the famous Supercinema, and eat at the numerous pasta hang-outs or thetraditional restaurants that served Bariis Maraq, a somali Beef Stew mixed with delicious spiced rice. The samestreet was also home to Iftinphone and Shankarphone, two of the city's best known music shop. Locatedopposite each other, they were the centre of Somalia's burgeoning cassette distribution network. Both shops,run by members of the legendary Iftin Band, would become first-hand witnesses to the meteoric rise of Dur-Dur, a rise that climaxed in April of 1987 with the release of Volume 2, their second album.
The first single 'Diinleya' had taken Somalian airwaves by storm in a way rarely seen before or since. The nextsingle, 'Dab,' had an even greater impact, and the two hits had turned them into the hottest band in town. Inaddition to their main gig as house band at the legendary Jubba Hotel, Dur-Dur had also been asked toperform the music for the play Jascyl Laba Ruux Mid Ha Too Rido (May one of us fall in love) at Mogadishu'snational theatre. The play was so successful that the management had been forced to extend the run by amonth, throwing the theatre's already packed schedule into complete disarray; and each night, as soon as theplay had finished, Dur-Dur had to pack their instruments into a Volkswagen T1 tour bus that would shuttle themacross town in time for their hotel performance.The secrets to Dur-Dur's rapid success is inextricably linked to the vision of Isse Dahir, founder and keyboardplayer of the band. Isse�s plan was to locate some of the most forward-thinking musicians of Mogadishu�sbuzzing scene and lure them into Dur-Dur. Ujeeri, the band's mercurial bass player was recruited from SomaliJazz and drummer extraordinaire Handal previously played in Bakaka Band. These two formed the backboneof Dur-Dur and would become one of Somalia's most extraordinary rhythm sections.
Isse also added his two younger brothers to the line-up: Abukar Dahir Qassin was brought in to play lead guitar,and Ahmed Dahir Qassin was hired as a permanent sound engineer, a first in Somalia and one of the reasonsthat Dur-Dur became known as the best-sounding band in the country.
On their first two albums, Volume 1 and Volume 2, three different singers traded lead-vocal duties back andforth. Shimaali, formerly of Bakaka Band, handled the Daantho songs, a Somalian rhythm from the northernpart of the country that bears a striking resemblance to reggae; Sahra Dawo, a young female singer, had beenrecruited from Somalia's national orchestra, the Waaberi Band. Their third singer, the legendary Baastow, whose nickname came from the italian word 'pasta' due to the spaghetti-like shape of his body, had also been avocalist with the Waaberi Band, and had been brought into Dur-Dur due to his deep knowledge of traditionalSomali music, particularly Saar, a type of music intended to summon the spirits during religious rituals. Thesetraditional elements of Dur-Dur's repertoire sometimes put them at odds with the manager of the Jubba Hotelwho once told Baastow I am not going to risk having Italian tourists possessed by Somali spirits. Stick to discoand reggae.
Yet from the very beginning, Dur-Dur's doctrine was the fusion of traditional Somali music with whateverrhythms would make people dance: Funk, Reggae, Soul, Disco and New Wave were mixed effortlessly withBanaadiri beats, Daantho and spiritual Saar music. The concoction was explosive and when they stormed theMogadishu music scene in 1986 with their very first hit single, 'Yabaal,' featuring vocals from Sahra Dawo, itwas clear that a new meteorite had crash-landed in Somalia. As Abdulahi Ahmed, author of Somali FolkDances explains: Yabaal is a traditional song, but the way it was played and recorded was like nothing else wehad heard before, it was new to us. 'Yabaal' was one of the songs that resurfaced on the Likembe blog, and itbecame the symbolic starting point of this project.It initially seemed that Dur-Dur's music had only been preserved as a series of murky tape dubs and YouTubevideos, but after Samy arrived in Mogadishu he eventually got to the heart of Mogadishu's tape-copyingnetwork � an analogue forerunner of the internet file-sharing that helped to keep the flame of this music alivethrough the darkest days of Somalia's civil strife � and ended up finding some of the band's fabled mastertapes, long thought to have disappeared.
