Extra Golden - "Hera Ma Nono"

Extra Golden - Hera Ma Nono (Thrill Jockey 2007)

Extra Golden – Hera Ma Nono / Thrill Jockey

Last September (2006), I made it a priority to catch Extra Golden play live during at least one of their multitude of performances at Chicago’s excellent World Music Festival. I was already infatuated with their debut album, Ok-Oyot System (which not only made Audiversity’s Top 60 of 06 but was in my Top 10 as well), and seeing as how half the band was from Kenya and could very well never make the trip to the states again, it seemed slightly urgent. The surreal night still rings in my head as if it happened just hours ago: I took the bus down to the South Shore Cultural Center and entered the walled compound fifteen minutes after the show had started. It was my first trip to the Southside Center, and with it already being a visceral fall night, as I was walking up to the mammoth, almost plantation home-looking building in the center of the large walled-in park it honestly felt like I was being geographically transplanted to accommodate the music. After entering the near empty, antiquated Center, I followed the distinct syncopated rhythms to the dimly lit auditorium where Extra Golden was performing. The room already looked like it hadn’t been refurbished since the 40s and with the array of metal chairs set-up, the low, glowing lights and the small number of people dancing dreamily to the music, I swear I had to forcefully shake off the feeling that I was just somehow transported sixty years back to an East African performance hall. Extra Golden’s music just has that effect on you; it’s nostalgic, hypnotic and transcendent.

The original line-up of the cross-cultural quartet Extra Golden is the unlikely pairing of two Washington, DC musicians, Ian Eagleson (Golden) and Alex Minoff (Golden, Weird War) and two Kenyan artists, Otieno Jagwasi and Onyango Wuod Omari (both of the Orchestra Extra Solar Africa). Eagleson and Minoff were already exploring multi-culture infusions in their band Golden (also featuring Philip Manley of Trans Am and Jon Theodore of Royal Trux, Palace and the Mars Volta), but it wasn’t until Eagleson traveled to Kenya to work on his PhD in ethnomusicology that a true cross-cultural fusion of sounds could be made. Kenyan popular music is mostly dominated by a guitar-heavy style called benga music, which was popularized in the late 60s when Luo musicians looked to mimic the sound of the traditional nyatiti, essentially an eight-string lyre, on electric guitars and teamed it with East Africa’s polyrhythmic musical foundation. In the mid-aughts, Eagleson was in Kenya recording modern benga bands when he formed his own group with two of the local musicians, Jagwasi and Omari, and invited Minoff to join them. The result was Ok-Oyot System which was released via Thrill Jockey in 2006, but recorded a year or two earlier. Eagleson infused American boogie music and shards of almost Dischordian angular rock into the benga foundation to produce a sound near completely individual. Sadly, it looked like Ok-Oyot System would be a one-off project when singer/guitarist/co-founder Otieno Jagwasi passed away in 2005, but thankfully singer/guitarist Opiyo Bilongo of the Bilongo Golden Stars stepped up to keep the band afloat. The Chicago shows were the first international performances for the group (and the first trip out of East Africa for drummer Omari and Bilongo) and was followed by six weeks of touring, which ended in a secluded recording session in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Utilizing the same recording equipment, lovingly dubbed the “Nyathi Otenga Flying Studio,” but with an expanded array of instrumentation and gear, Extra Golden recorded their sophomore effort, Hera Ma Nono.

For obvious reasons, the biggest difference between the two albums is the buoyancy of their sound. Though the same recording equipment was used, the more technologically advanced setting and, most likely, a less restrictive timetable let the band further explore their infusion of styles by experimenting with different sounds and techniques. The guitars, which now are occasionally strewn through effects pedals, chime even more colorfully than before, and Omari, getting to work with a full drum kit for his first time ever, experiments with an array of percussive toys throughout the album. As well, Bilango’s voice is significantly more melodic than Jagwasi’s low-key delivery. Those details paired with the fact that at the time of recording, it was most likely a very jovial period for the musicians involved no doubt led to the increased spiritedness of the already vibrant sound.

The album opens surprisingly with “Jakolando,” which relies more heavily on the American boogie side of the stylistic pairing with a rollicking piano, an animated acoustic guitar and handclap-enhanced beat. The melodically arcing benga guitars and Bilango’s singing in luo quickly remind you that this is cross-cultural music though. An ode for the Illinois Senator and presidential hopeful whose office was instrumental in helping the Kenyan musicians retain their visas to make the international trip in 2006, “Obama” sees the group in a more traditional benga setting, though it erupts with distorted wa-wa guitars, a first for the group, during the more urgent second-half of the song. My personal favorites come in the second half of the album with the haunting “Brothers Gone Away” and the phenomenal album closer “Hera Ma Nono,” which is luo for “love in vain.” The former features Omari taking advantage of his newfound percussive toys, seemingly exploring his entire enhanced drum kit, and the odd but invigorating vocal experiment of Bilango subtly backing Eaglson’s lead vocals. The title track is at first the most similar track to the Ok-Oyot System sessions, but blossoms brilliantly when a echo-effects take over the instrumentation and bright, psychedelic pedal transforms the lead guitar into a sound like none I have ever heard.

To be honest, my initial opinion of Hera Ma Nono was not overtly positive as I was so taken by Extra Golden’s debut. But truth be told, there are such different circumstances between the two albums, it is almost impossible to consider them in one mindset. The increased vibrancy of the band’s evolution is absolutely a good thing, and their newfound ability to explore new sonic possibilities only further intrigues their sound. Hera Ma Nono does not lose any of the hypnotizing nostalgic vibe of Ok-Oyot System, which I am greatly thankful for, though I think the more polished recording settings did strip away just a bit of the idiosyncratic character of the debut. All in all though, I am just happy that a sophomore album from Extra Golden exists at all, and I hope I get the chance to experience their transcendent live show once again.