Kasai Allstars - Around Félicité

The Guardian 80

(Crammed)

Film-maker Alain Gomis’s award-winning feature Félicité is a portrait of Kinshasa’s vibrant music scene told through Félicité, a single mother struggling to make it as a bar singer. It presumably helps that her backing band is played by the Kasai Allstars, the city’s most famous and inventive outfit, and that her vocal parts come from the group’s lead singer, Muambuyi. The soundtrack is a showcase for the Allstars’ dazzling mix of tradition and fuzzbox “Congotronics”, though it also features lovely orchestral pieces by Estonia’s Arvo Pärt, arranged by Kinshasa’s Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste, while for the group’s substantial hipster following comes a bonus CD of edgy remixes. A winning package.