CD Reviews

The Very Best | MTMTMK

Moshi Moshi/Cooperative Music (2012)

By RYAN REED | July 17, 2012

3.5 Stars

"World music" is an archaic label, but there's no better way to describe the Very Best's MTMTMK. On their second collaborative album, London-based production crew Radioclit and Malawian vocalist Esau Mwamwaya seamlessly blend hip-hop, dance-hall, psych-pop, and traditional African styles, threatening to launch into orbit with their music's sheer massiveness. "Yoshua Alikuti," with its pulsating synths, tumbling percussion, and mile-wide hook, remains an infinite spine-tingler. Mwamwaya's agile tenor could fill a stadium all on its own; he sells every note with passion, even when he's just singing about getting laid. Radioclit (wonderfully appropriate name) aim straight for your deepest pleasure zones even while experimenting with bizarre textures. As excellent as straightforward dance tracks like "Rude Boy" may be (Rihanna who?), MTMTMK is infinitely more fascinating when it's pushing the envelope, mixing weirdness and darkness into the radiant multi-culti stew. "Adani" charges like a freight train, with Mwamwaya's dissonant vocal twitching over woofer-busting percussion and dog-whistle synths. Auto-Tune has never been creepier than on "Rumbae," in which Martian synths erupt like landmines in a militant jungle of rhythms. Meanwhile, Vampire Weekend will cream their jeans with envy when they hear "Kondaine," an anthemic stadium-pop miracle with a chorus so catchy it will make you laugh with joy.

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