Mpala Garoo - Ou Du Monde (Vinyl LP)

This is a curious little album. It’s by the mysterious Russian Mpala Garoo and was originally released on tape. The press release says that it fits somewhere between Ducktails and Sean McCann...basically that means what’s going on here is slow, warm, tropical-sounding slightly post-dubby electro acoustic instrumentals with lots of weird details and drifty, washed-out melodies.

The electronic elements keep reminding me of Sun Araw, actually, but there’s a lot of gently strummed guitars and samples which give it a denser, less static feel than the Araw’s spiritual weed jamming. For my money the casual good vibes in the guitar playing are bringing to mind some Afrobeat/highlife vibes but put through some kind of Inner Tube drowsy retro filter. Somebody is singing now and Kim says they sound like they’re locked in a cupboard. She’s got a point.

Flip it and there’s a smaller amount of longer songs, heading even further into blissed out Araw territory especially on ‘Vive L’Immensite’, a jam with Sergei Dmitriev which according to the sleeve “may be considered the birth of Kon Tiki Gemini”. My highlight on the whole LP, though, has to be closer ‘Invisible Dolphins’, where a more defined muddy drum groove is joined by cut up melodic weirdness for an ethereal passage of blissed out chill vibes that rounds off proceedings perfectly.