Search - Salala :: Salala

Great, but repetitive, harmony

Jim Bodie | Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada | 12/16/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Finally got a copy of the Salala CD that I have been looking for since early this year. SAFM, the South Africa national radio station that I primarily listened to while I was living in South Africa for 18 months, compiled a couple of CDs called "The African Connection", after a program on the station by the same name, and used the group Salala, from Madagascar, to promote them. I fell in love with the quality of the voices and especially the superb harmony. I was most disappointed to discover that the track I had heard on the radio is the only track on the whole CD that demonstrates their harmony without frequent, and seemingly unending, repetitions, in some cases. I had already learned, before I ever went to SA, that African native music tends to be repetitious. But 1- or 2-bar repetitions that happen 10 times or more in succession is hard to take, to my Western ear. Sometimes the record sounds like it is stuck. Perhaps the album will grow on me with repeated listening."