Northern Ghana traditional music group, fra fra’s new album, ‘Funeral Songs’, is set to be released on April 24 on Glitterbeat Records.
The Raw and celebratory funeral music is characterised by hypnotic kologo excursions, pulsing percussion and enraptured voices.
In some climes, rituals of death require music to accompany the spirit of the dead on its journey to the great beyond and most importantly to express the feeling of grief by the mourners. The funeral songs of this trio represent, like those of New Orleans, a celebration of a life lived.
The album was recorded live without overdubs and outdoors by Grammy Award winner Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ustad Saami, Zomba Prison Project, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot) and the energetic tunes are rendered on a range of acoustic instruments strumed, shaken and blown.
‘Funeral Songs’ is the sixth release from Glitterbeat’s acclaimed Hidden Musics – a series of field recording albums that explore lesser known sonic traditions from around the world, while focusing on highly localized sounds as opposed to globalized musical hybrids. The music is raw, time-honoured and bound to a specific place.