Tony Allen "Film of Life"

Every now and then, while filtering and sorting through new music for 2BBB's weekly two-hour Local Global Show, I come across a track or a CD that leaves me totally gobsmacked. From the fresh perspective of the New Year, one such discovery has firmed up as the undoubted album of 2014, in my books.

It is "Film of Life", the recent masterpiece from septuagenarian Nigerian legend Tony Allen, who was the percussive force behind Fela Kuti and who is the drummer accredited with introducing Afro Beat to the world in the sixties and seventies. He's the man who has been referred to by Brian Eno as "possibly the greatest drummer the world has ever known".

He is one of those more remarkable artists who has never stood still. Always open to collaborations, always shape-shifting through assorted musical genres (from dub, to space jazz, to international pop) but always firmly rooted in his native Yoruba and other Pan-African rhythms. Early on, as an 18 year old technician at Radio Nigeria, and later playing with Fela Kuti in various groups, he developed a unique understanding of the western drum set. Inspired and informed by American Bebop drummers such as Art Blakey and Max Roach. His use of cymbals, snare and tom toms has a trademark unhurried, laid-back quality that runs right through this new, 10th solo release.

The sunny, uplifting AfroBeat backline is there; The funky brass lines; The insistent, jagged rhythm guitar; The tinkling, cascading keyboards: All of these combine to dare you to stay still. In Allen's own words "I’ve always thought of my drums as an orchestra. I like to create a melody with my drums when I play. I like to make them sing" .For "Film of Life" he certainly succeeds in this. He's joined by an array of renowned and supremely talented musicians, young and old, African and European. Manu Dibango and Kuku are among them.

His long term friend Damon Albarn is also heavily involved, lending his lead vocals to one of two tracks on which Allen implores potential refugees from Africa to think again before taking that perilous "Boat Journey" across the Mediterranean, rather to "Go Back" to work within their local communities to try to make things better. The production team, a trio of Paris musicians by the name of the Jazzbastards, create a mix of crystal clarity, the mass of voices and instruments always separated beautifully.