XX, The new album by reggae band Ska Vengers, needs an ambience to be heard
XX, The new album by reggae band Ska Vengers, needs an ambience to be heard. You need to be on a noisy street, full of people in outdoor bars, drinking, brawling or flirting. You must also be in the mood to dance. That’s what this album will make you want to do — dance. It’s a mix of many genres — there’s the Afro beat, disco, hip-hop, punk and of course, ska, jazz and reggae.
Ska Vengers is a mix of many genres including Afro beat, disco, hip-hop, punk, jazz, among others. Pic/Zacharie Rabehi
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The band (comprising Begum X, Delhi Sultanate on vocals, Stefan ‘Flexi’ Kaye on organ/percussion, Chaitanya Bhalla on guitar, Tony Bass on bass, ‘The Late’ Nikhil Vasudevan on drums, Shirish Malhotra on tenor saxophone and Kishor Sodha on trumpet) does justice to all of these.
We got into the groove with El Cumbachero, which is half-Cuban, half-Afro and all fun. Then there is the hip-hop Frank Brazil, a “murder ballad” about revolutionary Udham Singh. The writing on the album ranges from government surveillance to murder to love and longing.
Ska Vengers’s sound is a masterclass in how to combine different cultures and their music and not have it sound like a mish-mash of indecipherable strains. But, like everything new and not tried and tested, you need to give their music some time to grow on you.
Buy XX on iTunes and Ok Listen for Rs 120
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