Ibibio Sound Machine - Chopping Mountain

Chopping Mountain is the sixth long player from Ibibio Sound Machine. It was recorded in South London at their Vanguard studio and produced by synthesist/saxophonist Max Grunhard. It's the first time ISM has eschewed an outside producer since 2019's Doko Mien. Their subjects across these ten tracks are love, social and political resistance, unity, and healing, both societal and individual. While these aren't unfamiliar topics, they are presented with a seamless maturity and an unwillingness to compromise. The songs were rehearsed, performed, and recorded collectively; they're chock-full of classic West African highlife, mutant post-punk, Afrobeat, electronic sounds, and breathtaking 21st century soul.

Opener "Burning in Lagos" is introduced by hand drummers, reverb and electric piano before iconic frontwoman Eno Williams begins singing. Her lyrics contrast experiences in both her countries, Nigeria and England. A powerful striding bassline underscores the drummers. Williams' bandmates surround her with electronic textures, keyboards, horns, and more as the tempo increases and funky Afrobeat and jazz-funk collide. Afrobeat and post-punk disco meet on the title track; layered keyboards continually circle through the tight, deep bassline and roiling percussion. The blippy keyboard sounds and careening synth bass underscore Williams' chant on "When You Want to Dance." It's where '80s new wave, late post-punk, and disco intersect; the horn section floods in and buoys the vocalist. Williams sings through a vocoder on the intro to single "Concept of Love." When the layered drums and percussion fold in, several zigzagging synths underscore the dance groove that simultaneously recalls Giorgio Moroder and Daniel Miller. The rocking wah-wah guitar reaches toward psychedelia, coloring the foreground and trancey rhythms. 

Single "Return to Sender" details the story of a harrowing car accident. The band is wrapped in disco-fied, futurist Afrobeat and dancefloor funk. Layers of keyboards, drums, keys, and horns weave and collide underneath Williams' glorious singing. It's followed by "Give Me Peace" that begins as a '70s soul ballad that is almost hijacked by a spooky, electronic backdrop. Joseph Amoako's rippling snare beats and breaks frame an acoustic piano as Williams and backing chorus chant, "Give me peace/Give me freedom, Give me love/With a kiss…" It moves into cosmic soul and deft futurist R&B. She's joined in a duet during the second half by vocalist Dele Sosimi (formerly keyboardist in Fela Anikulapo-Kuti's Egypt '80). Two tracks later, "Love" is a blissed-out exercise in tender, soaring, highlife soul with a bassline worthy of Larry Graham. Chopping Mountain delivers a heady, sometimes swoony tapestry of disparate (though never clashing) styles and wildly divergent points of origin. That said, it is easily the band's most consistent, holistic date as they illuminate the will to freedom for everybody through struggle. Chopping Mountain is an infectiously listenable, frenetically danceable album that remains steadfast in its ecstatic musical quest for justice. Thom Jurek ~ AllMusicGuide