Ebo Taylor Life Stories torrent

This collection lets us in on highlights from Taylor’s solo career, but also points us to a glut of hidden gems. His work with the Apagya Showband—who only released a couple of singles—is well represented here with the “Tamfo Nyi Ekyir”, “Kwaku Ananse”, and “Mumude”. These songs trade organ vamps and gnarled guitar work, as a sort of call and response, and this stuff sprints more than any of Taylor’s other work. These songs juxtapose well with the CK Mann Big Band song here, “Etuei”. Taylor only wrote and produced on this one, but its dreamy slide and gauze guitar work show another brilliant side to his musical vision.

The stuff we get from Taylor’s purely solo work is absolutely essential listening. “Heaven”, which opens the two-disc set, is an Afrobeat classic, with his wandering guitar leads slicing holes through the skronky organ work. His guitar playing is at its best on “Peace on Earth”, where the horn section best represents his Highlife roots with those beautiful, towering rundowns that stop the song it its track to punctuate each movement. The biggest surprise here comes in the rare track “Aba Yaa”, an epic, shuffling 15-minute piece. The structures get loose on this one, but Taylor never loses direction. This stuff marches forward, but rather than move forward with the propulsion we expect from Afrobeat, it claims a space and builds a landscape around it with vocal harmonies, chiming organs, a warm bed of horns, and funky guitars. It’s a definitive statement from Taylor, both as a player and a composer/arranger, and an endlessly interesting piece of music to study.

EAC stuff & images included