Reviews
Baka Beyond Album: Sing The World Awake
Label: March Hare
Tracks: 11
Website: https://bakabeyond.bandcamp.com/album/sing-the-world-awake
Inspired by hearing unforgettable recordings of intricate polyphonic music, since 1992, musician ethnomusicologist Martin Cradick and musician Su Hart have been recording with the Baka people of Cameroon. Baka Beyond is the collaborative result, the band's name a clever pun on both the African musicians' name and the comparative isolation of the semi nomadic singers. Over 34 years, a host of releases and countless live performances members of the ensemble have come and gone. But the core of Martin, Su and the Yeli singers and musicians of the Baka have consistently produced music that is honest, rich, uplifting and influential.
Twelve years after Baka Beyond's last album, AFTER THE TEMPEST and thirty three since their glorious debut SPIRIT OF THE FOREST there is a cyclical nature to SING THE WORLD AWAKE. Circular because Baka musician Loni Julienne whose distinctive voice echoing through the ambience introduced titular track one of the 1995 Hannibal album, is the first thing you hear over the bird song on opening track "Dance The Dawn". Mixing recordings from the Cameroon rainforest and Vortex studios in Bath, she duets with the forest, Martin Cradick's atmospheric guitar and Congolese musician Kibisingo Douglas' seismic bass. Percussion ripples through, other celebratory voices join in and Baka Beyond manage to be restful and uplifting hitting a shimmering groove.
SING THE WORLD AWAKE is joyful feel good music and Martin's guitar on "Tope Malangui Kpode" mixes African bounce with jazzy swing. Ben Moneypenny's violin also brings that Grappelli and Reinhardt hot jazz swing. Uplifting Baka lyrics are sung by Su Hart and Ellie Jamison, as the album title hints, the groove makes it impossible to just listen passively. More rich guitar and a solid bass and layered percussion dances behind Api Ascaso's Spanish vocal on "Nanjinga's Song". Again the mix of sounds is both intoxicating and uplifting.
With recording sessions in Cameroon spread out over a number of years, "We Miss You" is especially poignant as Nahwia Helene, the singer whose Yeli singing opens the track died in 2025. Album highlight "We Miss You" is a joyful celebration with an absolutely room moving pulse from Douglas' bass and Welsh drummer Clyde Kramer's playing. Rim shots and a huge bassline smile to Reggae another musical form rooted in Africa via the Jamaican diaspora, while voices and Cradick's guitar burst from the speakers. "Mostly Water" a song from and about tradition is spooky English Folk Psych sung by Su and Ellie, but that jazzy Baka Beyond back line still pulls you in.
Beautiful ambience opens slow drifting "Deep Forest (Loni's Song) as distant Yeli singing and sublime guitar create a forest lullaby that I could of listened to all night. Martin Cradick is a fine player who together with the bass and drums lays down an effortlessly cool groove, he is clearly well immersed in African guitar, from Highlife to Palm Wine Music to Zimbabwean Jit. "Inner Orbit" has a more Folk Rock edge to its intro, but the beat, the violin and the swirling guitar soon transport the listener away. "Mbouya" built around vocals from Freddie and Sangoweh, guitar from Ndeke and percussion from Ndia has the spirit of The Baka running through it and an irrepressible groove from Bath wrapped around it.
This is an absolutely stunning album, but then with twelve Baka Beyond albums amongst our collection I wouldn't of expected anything less. Martin Cradick, Su Hart and Baka Beyond blend music into a cohesive whole. The recordings from Cameroon are not just textures, added for effect as flat as AI. These performances are the beating heart of the tracks with the royalties from their performances going back to the semi nomadic Baka people through a Global Music Exchange charity Martin set up in 1995. The Baka people have a simple philosophy 'everyone deserves to be listened to' this album pulling in traditions from the UK, Jamaica, Africa and Europe is an uplifting joy without borders that fully endorses that belief.
Martin Cradick started an MA dissertation in 2019 and it was the re-listening to over 30 years of recording from Cameroon that sparked the writing and recording of this album. His title 'Baka People and Technology of Enchantment' stands as an alternative title for the album and a reminder that we should be like musical swifts and direct our ears to ignore boarders and travel as far as they can. On the off chance that this is your first encounter of Baka Beyond I would strongly advise you to check out their back catalogue. It is all this good and all this joyful.
Marc Higgins
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