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African Footprint International

by African Footprint International

supported by
Lars Gotrich
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Lars Gotrich Ghanaian drum dance from the motherland! Beautiful, ecstatic drumming compositions that are sometimes filled out with highlife-style guitar and psychedelic free-jazz overdubs from the extended Akron/Family. Favorite track: San Bra.
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1.
Obeka 05:59
2.
San Bra 07:01
3.
Abakan 04:24
4.
Wongye 05:56
5.
Take Me Home 04:09
6.
Asafo 08:36
7.
7 8 02:30
8.
Remember 03:33
9.
7am 02:54
10.
11.
Gerebekyana 02:59
12.
Welcome 02:26
13.
Journey 13:55

about

I first met Kweku from African Footprints International in Denmark at the Roskilde festival which is kind of like a Danish Coachella but bigger, and wetter. I think perhaps the Red Hot Chili Peppers were headlining that year. Dana from Akron/Family had met some of the drummers somewhere at the festival and invited them to sit in during our set, and they showed up with 20 drummers and dancers. It was incredible. Afterwards, I sat down back stage with Kweku, part sage part rebel, who told me about how his organization teaches the deaf to dance in Ghana and extended an invitation to visit him in Ghana.

In 2008 Ali and I began emails with Kweku about his ideas to make a record, and In January 2009, Ali and I traveled to Ghana and stayed with Kweku and his family in Cape Coast, planning to produce and engineer a record for them.


We worked closely with his incredible group of drummers, singers, and musicians to record songs that he had recently written based on traditional Ghanian drum patterns. We spent several weeks with them recording the songs and hanging out at night, hot, playing cards, drinking palm gin from small plastic bags and listening to their mp3s of Metallica and Aerosmith on their old Nokia cell phones.

//// any interesting poetry here about them, their place lifestyle... recording in the church... i dunno?

Kweku wanted us to take the music back to the US and have musicians play on it, as a conversation, a way for these rhythms to reach out further into the world. We did overdub sessions with a bunch of great musicians like Dana Janssen (Akron/Family), Jef Brown (Jackie O Motherfucker/Gospel of Mars), Luke Wyland (AU), Cord Amato (Motrik), and Justin Small and Charles Spearin (Do Make Say Think), bringing in elements and influences and sounds from Pharaoh Sanders to Neil Young’s Dead Man Soundtrack, we added everything from drums and lap steel to saxophone and metal noise guitar and then went to Detroit Michigan to shape it and mix it all together with notorious producer/engineer Chris Koltay (Liars/Dirtbombs/War on Drugs/Holy Fuck).

The results are somewhere between a field recording an a handshake across time. As Kweku says of us all - “We are the architects of time”.

credits

released October 18, 2019

All songs were written by  Samuel Kweku Addison, with the exception of:

Obeka and 7 8 - composed by  Emmanuel Kwesi Obos Stephens 
Asafo - Traditional Folk Song
Gerebekyana - John Kuubeterzie


African Footprints International Musicians :

Master Drums and Supporting Drums:

Peter Bruce,  Abraham K. Mensah, Samuel Ofori, Alex Gyan, Richard Addison, Kweku Addison, John Kuubeterzie

Drum kit: Smart
Trombone: Seth Ofori
Trumpet: Kobby Hayford
Guitar: Emmanuel K. Obos Stephens
Bass: Augustus Addison
Vocals: African Footprint Int. Members and Friends 

Additional Musicians:

Guitar: Seth Olinsky, Justin Small, Cord Amato
Keyboards: Ali Beletic, Luke Wyland
Sax: Jef Brown
Trumpet: Charles Spearin
Drums: Dana Janssen

Recorded and Produced by Seth Olinsky and Ali Beletic
Recorded in Cape Coast Ghana at Addison Studios
Mixed in Detroit at High Bias Studios by Chris Koltay

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