Ondigui And Bota Tabansi International
★★★★ Ewondo Rythm BBE. CD/DL/LP Southern Nigerian dance band lives the highlife and parties like it’s 1977. London’s BBE label is working its way through the catalogue of Tabansi Records, home of around 180 albums released between 1975 and the mid-1990s, but it will be a surprise if there is anything more enjoyable than this five-track set from an ensemble who appear to have had a purple patch in 1977, capitalising on it by releasing a stream of LPs using a handful of pellucid pseudonyms. Taking advantage of their proximity to west and central Africa, plus the Cameroon roots of their vocalist, Ondigui, they blended Congolese rumba with Nigerian highlife, with outrageously sharp guitar playing and insistent bouncing rhythms vying for dancers’ attention. The 32 minutes race by at a fair clip – the picks of the bunch being Beza Bakili Ma Nyon and Wonderful For Ashawo – but hopefully there will be more from the same outfit, whatever their name, shortly.