Name: Funeral Songs
Brand: Fra Fra

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

GBLP089

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Colour

black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2020-04-24

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Proper

Tax rate GB

UPC / Barcode

4030433608913

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Total Cap

1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

Artist

Fra Fra

Genre GB

African

Label GB

Glitterbeat

Raw and celebratory funeral music from northern Ghana. Hypnotic kologo excursions. Pulsing percussion. Enraptured voices. Recorded 100% live and outdoors by Grammy winner Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ustad Saami). Sixth release from Glitterbeat’s acclaimed Hidden Musics series.

On the dusty-road outskirts of Tamale (Ghana) near the School of Hygiene, the group says they prefer to use the name given to their tribe by colonialists (Fra Fra) rather than being commanded what to correct after the fact.

The Fra Fra trio is led by Small, a man who celebrates his diminutive size rather than seeing it as a lack. He picked the two-string Kologo ‘guitar’ with dog-tags fastened at the head as rattles. Another hallmark of Fra Fra culture are the tiny bone mouth flutes that they actually call horns, since that is what they are made from.

As funeral songs are often done in procession, I took the mics to the group when they seemed reluctant to enter the compound, instead gyrating in circles on the gravel outside. In recording, coverage is more important than precision. Every microphone tells a slightly different version of the truth, so I quickly threw up as many as possible. Far from deathly dirges, these were largely celebrations. Their process of mourning bares more than a passing resemblance to a New Orleans second line marching band. It is challenging to disregard this as mere coincidence given the sad history of the transatlantic slave trade exploiting their very region in the north. -- Ian Brennan

Funeral Songs

Music GB