Afro Celt Sound System – OVA (Six Degrees Records, 2024)
By the time he formed Afro Celt Sound System in 1995, multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, and musical explorer Simon Emmerson had demonstrated an expanding knack for knowing how to fuse African sounds to the proper degree. He’d recently produced Baaba Maal’s landmark Firin’ in Fouta album, and in so doing noticed a melodic kinship between African and Celtic music.
Jam sessions at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studio connected Emmerson with the singers and players who would form the original lineup of Afro Celt Sound System, a band that spelled out their intent in their name and delivered on it with remarkable success. Jigs, reels and sean–nós mixed with griot-inspired traditions and a fair measure of electronica across a series of albums and live appearances that made Afro Celt Sound System one of the most noted bands on the global music scene.
Emmerson passed away in March 2023. He’d already locked in his masterminding of ACSS’s latest release OVA, the title of which is a phonetic reading of the group’s logo. It comes as no surprise that the album is another finely crafted blend of deep roots and contemporary technology, nor is it revelatory that Emmerson’s touches are evident throughout.
When track titles range from “The Mantra” to “Glitchy Fiddles,” you know you’re in for serious musical fun, and OVA delivers it. There are dance pulses to spare, but none are the sort of mindless techno pounding so often heard nowadays. No, there are real instruments and skilled vocalists hard at work here, and they’re every bit as key as the plugged-in sheen that leads to the symbiotic final result.
While the African/Celtic duality is naturally still there, the band continues to bring in other influences as well. Thus Indian, Middle Eastern and even ancient Druidic elements are present, contributing factors to a musical journey that never feels anything less than genuine.
Large scale musical dramas like the opening “The Hawk Owl’s Lament” are balanced by more intimately chilled pieces (“Le Paix,” “AM”), giving the album an almost perfect sense of time-and-place pacing. Whatever the future holds for them, know that this band’s body of work under the guidance of their founder has been capped in very fine form.
Author: Tom Orr
Tom Orr is a California-based writer whose talent and mental stability are of an equally questionable nature. His hobbies include ignoring trends, striking dramatic poses in front of his ever-tolerant wife and watching helplessly as his kids surpass him in all desirable traits.