Wade

In the early 1970s the island of Jamaica, and in particular its reggae musicians, developed a love affair with small Japanese motor bikes. Honda bikes were eulogised in Big Youth’s ‘S90 Skank’ and Dillinger’s ‘CB200’, whilst their rival was lauded on Shorty The President’s ‘Yamaha Skank’, to name the most obvious examples. The plot of the film ‘Rockers’ revolved around how transformative a motorbike could be, providing a livelihood whilst projecting an image of success in the ghetto. Vivian ‘Yabby You’ Jackson had been fiercely independent as a singer and producer, and the success of his early self-pressed productions, mostly on the Prophets or Vivian Jackson labels, had given him a sense of hard earned autonomy.

Few artists would dare to tackle quite such a kaleidoscope of music styles and accompanying socio-political issues in the space of 12 songs and 66 minutes. And yet France-based Senegalese virtuosic bassist, vocalist and composer Alune Wade, who’s worked with Joe Zawinul, Marcus Miller, Oumou Sangare, Bobby McFerrin, Youssou N’Dour and others, achieves this with effortless mastery on Sultan, his fifth solo album in 15 years.

The dedicated fans of the legendary but also problematic Prog/Power Metallers Crimson Glory who made a sensation in the late 80’s and early 90’s, will remember that in 1999 they released their controversial fourth and last album, “Astronomica” after several back and forth. On that album, Wade Black, a tireless heavy metal worker was their frontman. Wade Black’s latest project is Astronomica, with a name (and artwork) obviously influenced by his participation in that Crimson Glory album. But this is where the similarities on every level stop. Black doesn’t revisit his prog/power past with Crimson Glory but sticks to what he knows better, namely a heavy metal approach of a clear old school aesthetic. In almost an hour, Astronomica offer us a heavy metal creation, without much inspiration and originality, that is nevertheless well crafted and what really stands out are some excellent guitar solos by Rich Marks (War of Thrones).