Consumer Guide Album

Samba Mapangala & Orchestre Virunga: Virunga Volcano [Earthworks/Virgin, 1990]
One of numerous wannabees who departed a Kinshasa controlled by Mobutu and/or Franco and Rochereau to service rumba-starved Kenyans, Mapangala named his band after a Zairean volcano. And up against the rustic underdevelopment of Nairobi pop in the '70s, any soukous variant could pass itself off as an eruption. But in the world-beat disco of 1990, Virunga's snaky bass and nimble guitar come off as spaced and delicate as the falsetto leads Mapangala trades with Fataki, his only permanent sideman, and the twin saxophones are low-budget funky, their cheesy embouchure stuck between alto and soprano. So for outsiders the music's beauty is far more fragile, or spiritual, than artist or natural audience believe. Which doesn't mean we can't sway to it. A−