Osibisa

Woyaya. MCA Records.

We, through the spirit of our ancestors, bring you love.

Our treasured gift of happiness.

Forget your problems.

See beyond the black clouds and be happy'

Your birthright is happiness.

Born from the dawn of time,

A gift to be cherished

Be happy! Be happy!

Such is the message of this second album by Osibisa. It's pretty powerful and by the time you've listened to it you feel like getting up and shouting it: be happy! It's an album to dance to, to sing to, for fun and happiness. Its glee is unpretentious. An album to breathe by, to heave by. It's a hip album, a zap album, an all-time, good-time fuck album.

Which seems to go without saying for Osibisa. These seven West African/West Indian guys pound out an unbelievably beautiful, rhythmically complex noise that occupies your whole brain if you let it. It's full of percussive innovations and multiple accents, though that isn't surprising since Osibisa is an old word from Ghana that means "criss-cross rhythms." No matter how involved these rhythms become, the effect is sustained because they are so well-measured — the acoustic reinforcement is maintained.

I hope I have not implied that Osibisa is a bunch of cheerful niggers rolling their eyeballs and belting their bongos, because Woyaya displays a whole lot of good musicianship and some inspired jubilant instrumental solos. Did I say instruments? If you've never heard voice used as percussion, try listening to Survival the first track on side two, and Longhty Lasisi Amao's incredible performance therein.

There are some remarkable ethereal moments, set against beautiful vocal passages from the chair, and spaced out by Teddy Osea's flute, Extended passages of singular per cussion intersperse the remaining full instrumental noise that pulsates ecstatically. Woyaya, by the way, means "where we are going," and I think Osibisa are going to please you.

"Be happy!" they sing - Oh, fuck, yes!

-Philip Alley

A nod is as good as good as a wink to a blind horse. Warner Brothers.

Anyone who has come up through rock and hasn't any pretensions about it doesn't need any bullshit about this LP. You put the record on your deck, turn it up loud, and move,

It sounds simple, but it's pretty hard to do these days. Of course, choose the rockers first then maybe get into the slower ones if you last that long.

Once you've got out of the rockers you'll probably start to think about the band, and to work out all the good moves these guys have got going for them especially the lead vocalist Rod Stewart. He came from a classic blues background, and developed and perfected his style with the Jeff Beck Group on the LP Truth. After their breakup, Ronnie Wood the bassman joined the Small Faces after Steve Marriot had left them, while Stewart established himself as a singer songwriter in three solo LPs: An old raincoat will never let you down. Gasoline Alley, and Every picture tells a story, backed mainly by the Faces.

The relationship which exists between the Faces and Rod Stewart is that he is basically another member of the band for recordings seen by the number of songs writen and sung by other members of the group) and live dates, and that on (he side he continues his solo career. On dates, songs from his solo LPs are played along with others by the Faces, so there is no need for him to wholly go solo.

Although he claims to be only part of the band everyone knows how he gets the crowd together with his Jagger-type stage act, and that he's a new superstar with some of the old shakes mixed with new ones.

On this album three songs are sung by the Faces while the other six are with Stewart. The songs by the Faces are much gentler in spirit and take their place mainly between rockers.

Debris, written by Ronnie Lane, travels into more serious realms and is probably one of the finest tracks on the LP.

Of course the best thing about the LP is the return of the old rock-and-roll and blues riffs and rhythms, the kind Keith Richard has been playing all his life without getting bored. It's good to get back to the roots.

-Scott Cameron