Tags: African

Review: Under the Guts guise, instrumental hip-hop beat-maker turned tropical soul enthusiast Fabrice Franck Henri has become one of Heavenly Sweetness' most reliable artists. "Philantropiques" is Henri's first album for three years and could well be his most expansive and adventurous to date. The set's 14 tracks are as colourful and musically rich as you'd expect, with the storied producer and a range of vocal collaborators conjuring up tracks that draw influence from a myriad of Central American, Caribbean, South American and African styles. The results are uniformly excellent, with highlights including the tropical shuffle of "Mucagiami (feat Vum Vum)", the sun-kissed French Caribbean funk of "Daddy Sweet (feat Pat Kalla)", the Afro-Tropical rush of "Kenk Corner" and the synth-powered brilliance of "Shake It & Rise Up".

Review: Malian singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Fatoumata Diawara has enjoyed a highly successful career, not just as a musician but also as an actor. Even so, it has taken a string of collaborations - including an appearance on Gorillaz album Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez - to bring her to a wider audience. London Ko, officially her third solo album, successfully highlights the open-minded, internationalist nature of her work, offering superb, immaculately produced songs that blend her Malian vocals, instrumentation and jangly guitar playing with nods to synth-pop, deep house, electronica, r&b and downtempo beats. Naturally, the album boasts several notable collaborations, with Damon Albarn guesting on 'Nesra', New York hip-hop-turned-soul queen Angie Stone lighting up 'Somaw', and Alberto Fomesca enhancing CD highlight 'Massa Den'.

Review: Thanks to an upsurge in interest in zouk, the synthesizer-heavy tropical style that emerged from the French Antilles in the early 1980s, reissues of superb but hard to find gems from the style's original heyday are becoming increasingly popular. This one from Strut Records is a peach. Originally released in 1988, "Las Pale" is the sole album from Feeling Kreyol, a female trio from Guadeloupe assembled and produced by local studio buffs Darius Denon and Frankie Brumier. It remains a brilliantly effervescent and colourful set, with the trio adding strong and attractive to distinctively tropical drum machine rhythms, shimmering synths, kaleidoscopic melodies and jangling guitars. In other words, it's a giddy blast of electronic tropical brilliance. Don't sleep.