Alostmen’s music centers the kologo, a lute-like instrument played by the nomadic Frafra tribes of northern Ghana and southern Burkina-Faso, whose two long animal gut strings are tuned to a strident fourth interval. The kologo is believed to be a predecessor to the American banjo, though there are lots of African lutes that share this claim (you can read a lot more about the kologo and its place in African music here). It is, in any case, fundamental to Ghanaian traditional music and culture. As kologo player and frontman Stevo Atambire puts it in the title track, “Kologo there before the banjo/Kologo there before the flute/Kologo there before the guitar/Kologo there before the lute/ Kologo there before Ghana/Kologo there before my youth/Kologo there before my mother/Kologo be the music root.”
Yet though the kologo may be the root, this music is pretty far from traditional shepherd music, drawing electronics, rap, highlife and reggae into its volatile mix. The staccato, pinging tones of kologo intersect with intricate rhythms on multiple types of hand drums; credits list Aminu Amadu on talking drum and Sowah on gome box, djembe and congo. A swooning, swooping goje fiddle played by Jo Ajusiwine caroms through “Fauziah,” while African rapper Yaa Pono stutter-chants a hard rhyme. Calls are haunting, responses lush and communal.  Producers Wanlov (Fok’n Bois) and Percy Yip Tong bring an amplified, modern fire to Alostmen’s complicated chants and beats. Kologo is a very good time.
And yet, while they groove in the hardest, most hedonistic way possible, Alostmen preach a message, too. “Teach Me,” is a rousing anthem to self-sufficiency setting the old “Teach a man to fish” maxim to a polyrhythmic, polytonal patter of drums. The drumming here gallops and prances and nearly sings, the percussionists derive many different notes from different parts of their instruments, stringing them together in a propulsive melody. The band cuts loose in the final third of the song, in a wailing, caterwauling, exhilarating interplay of voices and drums and kologo that cranks up stone-age vocal elements into an electrified celebration of movement.
The very best track, “Minus Man, brings in Ghanaian highlife star Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and a big brass line to light a match under Alostmen’s already incendiary music. “More bass, more bass,” yells Atambire, as the deep-voiced Ambolley growls and mutters at the low end. Guitars twitch and recoil on the upbeats, hand-drums batter recklessly forward and a brace of trumpets blare, in a bracing amalgam of funk, highlife and rap. The mix is loud and lush enough that you can just barely hear the kologo in it. It reminds you that the instrument may have come before everything else but is very far from the final word on what Alostmen can do with their space age take on traditional music. Â
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Bola ‎- Burilbunbol Suma
from:
Bola - Volume 7 (Awesome Tapes From Africa, 2012)
Bola’s music melds sheer force of spirit with a sound not often heard by ears outside the remote Upper East Region of Ghana. His bold fury stems from the kologo, a two-stringed lute with a calabash gourd resonator, and Frafra language vocals, emitted in raspy bursts.
Although he employs a traditional instrument and the age-old mode of griot story-telling, Bola embraces elements of up-to-the-minute mainstream Ghanaian music—drum machines, synths, bone-shaking bass. Inspired by pioneering kologo greats like King Ayisoba, Bola has taken a dynamic instrument used by traditional healers and herbalists to sing to god in search of advice and taken it to futuristic heights.
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For the River - i made this song with my band about plastic pollution in 2008... #ghana is even more polluted today... who do such songs benefit? #youtube #avenor #accra #livemusic #acoustic #cattle #koshka #trumpet #koanlogo #kologo #gome #dreadlocks #riverpollution #banplastic #reducereuserecycle LYRICS: i dey kai the way den we dey swim for the rivers plus wana friends afta den we dey fetch water take go cook den we dey chop better but somtin happen plastic come rivers turn into drastic dumps sewerage and electronic waste sweet river kai toxic taste i wan go boff for the river i wan hold ma head up for the river but e no dey anymore coz the river e full of borla e turn to gutter (at Midori-ku, Yokohama)
👣🎶 @atambirestevo & i have been on this journey for almost 10yrs...we have learnt so much from each other...much more to come...this we promise 📸 @niikotei #StevoNTheAlostmen #chalewote2017 @godin_guitars #kologo #frafra #ghana #africa #accra #livemusic (at Bukom-Ga)
