Sitting round listening to music with Dad is a joy. If there's anything that's gonna shift his focus from the pain he's suffering in his cancer screwed lung, it's some tunes. He constantly suprises me with what's in his playlist. This time it's this album which I've never heard of but I really love.

Jeff Mills & Tony Allen

I'm not sure if you know of Jeff Mills who founded Underground Resistance, the electric Detroit outfit/techno collective that came out with some pretty classic dance tunes in the early 90's. Bells was one of those classics. Jamie's a massive fan and even has an UR t-shirt like the middle aged kool kat his is. It's an iconic techno tune and if you don't love it maybe techno is not for you.

Anyway, I wasn't listening to techno with Dad, though I'm definitely going to play Bells for him just so he gets it. As I've said before, he's pretty open minded. What I was listening to was a collab between him and Tony Allen, who's the drummer for Fela Kuti, the afrobeat band. Check this song by Fela Kuti - Zombie - which was a massive political protest back in the 1970's, using the metaphor of zombies to criticize Nigerian soldiers, portraying them as mindless automatons blindly following orders. The whole album was thought to have ended up with his mother being killed and the destruction of his commune by the military. The album itself always ends up on 'best of' lists of the 1970's. Pretty classic. With this tune wait til about 5 minutes in before they even start singing. It's a freaking awesome song. I read a commen on the Youtube clip that said he said it to 2/4-4/4 time, which is the marching tempo of armies everywhere. That's pretty subversive. The link here comes up as unavailable but it might work in your country, otherwise find it on Spotify here.

Anyway, I'm finally back to Tony Allen - apparently without him, Kuti said, there would have been no Afrobeat, and Brian Eno said he was perhaps the greatest drummer that ever lived.

So anyway, with these two dudes, no bloody wonder I really, really loved listening to this album with my old man. Do yourself a favour and go listen to the whole thing. A collab between these two can only be great.