BAKA BEYOND:-

Sogo - reviews

"The Guardian"- April 14 2000

Dodgy name for a band, good album. Founded after guitarist Martin Cradick travelled to Cameroon to study the music of the Baka Pygmies, Baka Beyond has evolved into that rarity, a global fusion that actually works. Its members come from Britain, France and West Africa, mixing African drumming and guitar lines with Celtic melodies and the inspired Breton fiddle work of Paddy Le Mercier. A cool, sophisticated match for the Afro-Celt Sound System.
**** (4 stars)

"Songlines" - Spring/Summer 2000

However you define Baka Beyond's trademark mix of Cameroonian Baka Pygmy music sounds with haunting Gaelic melodies and Breton Gypsy fiddle, all rooted in rich West African rhythms, it has proved enduringly popular, spawning a string of distinctive and commercially successful albums since 1993. this, their fourth, benefits from an injection of fresh talent - drummers and dancers from Senegal and Ghana, a bassist from Cameroon and a backing vocalist from the UK. Its nine tracks represent a distillation of last summer's acclaimed stage performances, when the band took their feel-good, festival-mood sound to new heights.
Yet it's a spine-tingling ballad of the kind Baka Beyond do so well that starts Sogo. With Su Hart's pure-as-crystal singing and some gorgeous harmonies from Eleanor Churchlow in the foreground, "I See Winter" yields to talking drum-driven percussion, while Paddy Le Mercier gives us a taste of what Hendrix might have sounded like if he'd come from Co Clare and learned fiddle from a Turk. from here on it's business as usual. Infectious african guitar riffs and some truly cute songs are interwoven with electric-wah-wah mandolin solos, syncopated yeli vocals and even the odd blast of bombarde. Sogo, or so the liner-note tells us, is the name of the Ghanaian drum meaning "Presenter of the Lightning Spirit". But this is a markedly more sedate album than its title suggests. The one real surprise lies in the final track, which, fuelled by a driving Cretan groove, winds things up on an insistant note that bodes well for their forthcoming tour.
Dave Abrams
(Chosen for "Top of the World" - editor's selection of top ten releases reviewed)

"Folk Roots" - May 2000

. . . Somehow I've managed to avoid hearing anything by Baka Beyond before. Their name and the whole 'Pygmy Rainforest' thing put me off a bit (dabbling in such stuff tended to suggest the dreaded Deep Forest to me). That'll teach me to harbour such prejudices. Because, judging by Sogo, Baka Beyond are rather wonderful. Thje album features what I gather to be the usual band line-up augmented by musicians from West africa and Brittany, creating an acoustic based mix of Celtic and african (a bit like Afro Celt Sound System only without the Sound System). A light, flowing sound full of warm female harmonies, percussion, Breton fiddle and martin cradick's acoustic guitar. hard to pick out highlights but the opening I See Winter, the title track and the instrumental the Lightning Pot, which closes the album, are particular favourites at the moment. Looks like I've got a whole back catalogue to catch up on.
Jamie Renton

"Q magazine" - june 2000