Fofoulah ★★★

Daega Rek GLITTERBEAT. CD/DL/LP

Anglo-Gambian Afro-dub experimentalists venture further on out.

Time was when so-called world music yielded a thrilling experience of otherness, but now Western pop has absorbed so many flavours of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, that shock of the new is more elusive. Fofoulah, though, are properly outlandish, teleporting the listener to some West African metropolis a hundred years in the future. Formed in London by Gambian sabar drummer Kaw Secka and British keysman/ saxophonist Tom Challenger, the collective’s instrumentalonly remit expanded in 2014 when Secka began improvrapping on-stage. The stuttering foundation beats for Daega Rek were created by Dave Smith, drummer with Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters, often evoking a pan-African junglist mutation (Seye; Chebou Jane), while Challenger’s avantquesting synths (Pulo; Njite) add cosmic perplexity. With rhymes on Grenfell (Kaddy) and the truth (title track), this one’s fierce on every level.