Dj Katapila

Techno Africa

Genre: TECHNO / HOUSE

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WAV

Boomkat Product Review:

Ghanaian club mainstay DJ Katapila curves vintage Detroit and Chicago blueprints into West African structures from Accra's Ga lineage. "Techno Africa" is his sweatiest and most dancefloor-focused set to date >> RIYL Dance Mania, Shangaan Electro, Ata Kak, PRÍNCIPE.

While he only started producing music relatively recently, Ishmael Abbey has been commanding local parties across Accra for decades. His moniker "Katapila" is a reference to his superhuman endurance as a DJ, coined by fans in reference to the construction truck company. "I can play music non-stop for three days," he said in 2016. "I can play all night and then pack up in the morning and drive to the next place and do it again." This relentless energy buoys "Techno Africa", a crystalline follow-up to Abbey's brilliant "Aroo" EP that featured a Midwest techno-inspired track called 'African Techno'.

Abbey's voracious musical appetite and international travels had inspired him to hear techno with a critical ear: he had been playing dance music in Ghana since he was 16, mashing together hi-NRG edits of international hits with hiplife, dancehall and highlife bangers. His early productions were an attempt to fuse the energy of his DJ sets with Ga drum ensemble rhythms - like gome, kpanlogo and gyama - he'd known since he was young. But when he traveled to Europe, his understanding of the back-and-forth between Africa, the USA and Europe was transformed: "They have songs that sound like African music, and we have songs that sound like house and techno music," he said.

So "Techno Africa" is a direct response, a sequel to the sound he began to probe on 'African Techno'. Using immediately identifiable TR-808 and TR-909 sounds and abstracting familiar loops and cycles with homegrown rhythmic elements, Abbey carves out a particularly idiosyncratic niche. 'Pila Chorcor' is all Dance Mania jacked-up beatbox grot - complete with wormy synth bassline - lightened by Abbey's cheeky sense of humor and Ghanaian swing. His tongue-in-cheek style is never more evident than on 'Wube Wu', where he blends in brassy riffs from old folk nursery rhymes ('London Bridge is Falling Down' and 'If You're Happy and You Know It', if yr interested) over relentless hard-swung woodblock techno.

Elsewhere, 'Kata Yeke' makes more than a casual nod to NYC's ballroom sound, and the lengthy 'Ebaa Overbo Mix' sounds like an answer to Green Velvet and DJ Pierre, simultaneously looping dissonant bass plucks and TB-303 squelches over a syncopated West African 808 roll. It's dance music that comes bundled with a vivid roadmap of influences, connections and theories about a global interplay that lies at the very foundation of techno and house. Even more importantly - it fucking bangs.

MP3 Release (6)