Sisso & Maiko – Singeli Ya Maajabu

Nyege Nyege Tapes

The Dar Es Salaam duo build on their live breakout with one of the best records of the year

Sisso is a bulletproof legend of the Singeli scene at this point; his production stands as a core pillar of his label, which formed the backbone of 2018’s Sounds Of Sisso compilation. It was this album that first broke the Dar Es Salaam sound in Europe, and brought its compiler, Nyege Nyege Tapes, into focus as one of the most exciting labels on Earth. His live work with producer and keyboardist Maiko instils Singeli’s high-octane beats with an improvisatory feel, married with a flailing, joyous energy. Honestly, spend an afternoon with their sets on YouTube, and you’ll feel better about the world.

They do remarkably well to bring this same energy to their recorded output. The first half of the record largely sticks to the formula they have outlined in these live sets: the skittish, fluttering hummingbirds of beats and Maiko’s blistering free-form Yamaha freak outs. It’s a magnificent process, producing something totally distinctive, always mutating away from any expectations they have already set up.

Sisso’s beats are constantly shapeshifting, spritely collages of jabbing synth tones, but always maintaining their sense of absolute barnstorming power; and atop this Maiko wrenches his dinky, John Shuttleworth-esque keyboard far beyond anywhere it should reasonably go, stretching and mangling presets until they’re howling in pain. Imagine happy-hardcore night at The Phoenix Club and you’re about as close as you’ll get.

But it is the latter half of the album, when they break ranks and really start to experiment with their sound, that shifts it into being something properly astounding, of tracks that sound utterly unlike anything else. The beatless choral soothing of “Mangwale” is beautifully seasick, gently decaying into something woozy and sinister over its slim run time. “Njopeka” is desperately claustrophobic, its keys hectoring and pummelling, but yet it never lets up its momentum, and somehow comes out the other side a giddy joy.

“Zakwao” finally answers the question of “what would have Wesley Willis’s instrumentals have sounded like were he really into gabber, rather than Kurt Cobain and McDonald’s?”, all chintzy chords scrunched into atonal shapes and cheap cymbals. Amidst all this, the back half of the record never feels like a hodgepodge, instead becoming totally of a piece, bound by its own logic and warm, overwhelming energy.

It’s a dance music equal parts liberating and panicked, like the rollercoaster rush of airplane turbulence, totally all-consuming in its feral, limb flailing chaotic momentum. We have two artists who can’t help but push sonic boundaries, but never lose sight of the central rush at the core of their sound, and in the process making one of the out and out most joyful records of the year.

-Joe Creely-