African Breezy – SCooby Trillion (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

African Breezy, the new EP from SCooby Trillion, is a reminder that all music moves with the times. That even the most ancient and archaic sounds can be woven through the most cutting-edge styles to create something that feels both timeless and timely, wonderfully familiar and still totally fresh. It’s the sound of the past taking root in the present.

And so, across these five songs, he wanders the African soundscape, drawing in everything from Tuareg sonics and Middle Eastern vibes to Afrobeat grooves and East African traditions.

The title track kicks things off; its languid and lovely North African strings set up an exotic vibe; tribal drums build the energy, and a sense of place is established. But it isn’t a case of just reproducing world music or cultural appropriating sounds to weave through the music; the effected vocals and rapped interludes remind us that we are still firmly in the here and now.

‘Ghana Gator’ is the sound of East meeting West, of African grooves driving the pulse of American dance floors, of the old primal groove hitting fresh ears; ‘Baladi’ feels like a ballad drifting through time from the bazaars once found along the Mediterranean shores to the modern consciousness, and ‘Afro Sky’ is what happens when country sounds land on African shores.

The EP ends with ‘Don’t Leave Her’, which is full of marimba beats and drifting desert sonics- Red Sea pop at its finest…if that is even a thing- a beautiful ballad for these culturally and musical merged times.

African Breezy is not the sound of the present or the past, the East or the West, the traditional or the experimental; it is all those things, hopping genres and geographies, swerving expectations and avoiding comfort zones as it goes.

Unique and infectious, sonically succulent and worldly wise.