SUNBURST Vinilo y CD

Review: For hardcore fans of lesser-known African music, Sunburst has always been a under-appreciated outfit. Formed in Tanzania in 1970, the band released a handful of 7" singles and a lone album, Ave Africa, developing a sound that blended Afro-rock, Zamrock, and the Caribbean-influenced fusion style, Kitoto. This Afro-Western-Caribbean fusion is explored extensively on this first career retrospective. While the set also includes tracks from a previously unissued radio session, it mostly mines their officially released output. Spiritual, inventive, intoxicating and entertaining, the music showcased on Ave Africa seems to inhabit a sound space all of its' own, but is rarely less than superb.

Review: Another superb and intricately detailed document from Strut's dedicated archivists, Sunburst's short but hugely prolific activity between '73 and '76 is captured here in all its melting pot glory. Not just their one and only album but all 45s and unreleased recordings too. With six members from across the continent, the fusion, ideas and energy is palpable... Especially on full-screen tracks such as "Kamungulwe" where blues, rock and Tanzanian folk bubble and pop to a climax and "Alhamdullilah" stomps with a sweaty theatrical rock while "Ave Africa" finds the perfect merging point between Afrobeat and jazz. The band's live pedigree is also full screen with that rawness to the recordings that feels like they're in the same room. Addictively rich.