#Solzilla song for haiti bandcamp series#
What emerged from those long, hot sessions were a series of tracks with roots on both sides of the Atlantic, compelling layers of subtle polyrhythms that bridge centuries and cultures. Honestly, I don’t think any of us knew what to expect when we began.”
They grew out of voudou rhythms and a chant. “The other songs came from the Haitian musicians. “I’d find a riff and a few notes for the songs, but I tried to keep it simple,” Mulholland says. The music grew organically from long jams, some initiated by Allen and the other Western musicians, built around Allen’s Afrobeat rhythms and the grooves from Dary’s bass, like the eerie psychedelic dream of “Chay La Lou.” Then there was Tony, Olaf Hund on keyboards, and Jean-Philippe Dary, an old friend of Tony’s, on bass. We had 10 percussionists from all of Haiti’s top bands. “Putting it together was complete chaos,” recalls Mark Mulholland, who was drafted in as the Orchestra’s guitarist.
Together, the musicians had just five days to compose and rehearse the set they’d play in the main square of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and broadcast live throughout the country. They decided, in order for different strands of Haitian music to be represented, that the musicians would be drawn from a cross-section of the country’s foremost bands, including Racine Mapou de Azor, RAM, Erol's own band, the Yizra'El Band and Lakou Mizik, the group of Sanba Zao, one of Haiti's leading percussionists and traditional singers. Allen agreed, and Erol Josué, a singer, dancer, voodoo priest, and director of the Haitian National Bureau of Ethnology, helped to recruit local percussionists and singers. A performance with Haitian musicians at a major public concert would be perfect. She wanted to bring drummer Tony Allen, the power behind Afrobeat and one of modern music’s towering figures, to the island. The concept started with Corinne Micaelli, the director of the French Institute in Haiti. And on its self-titled album, the Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra honours those ghosts of the past even as it walks steadfastly and hopefully into the future.Įxperimental by name, the band was definitely experimental by nature. But music can cover that distance in a heartbeat, crossing the Atlantic to reunite the rhythms and religion of people torn from their homes to be sold into slavery on the Caribbean island. Seven-and-a-half thousand kilometres of cold ocean separate West Africa from Haiti.