Tribu

Tribu

The former Zap Mama member's first solo album (released in 1996) expands upon the pygmy-inspired yodeling that made the all-female vocal group so appealingly <I>exotique</I> at the time. But rather than going the a cappella route again, the Cameroon-born Paris resident arranges her Eton-language songs with instrumentation that becomes increasingly woodsy throughout the course of the album. In light of the crisp, percussive vocals Nyolo layers so fluidly, the French instrumentalists seem largely superfluous. Nyolo's art largely involves degree-zero voice and percussion, which are perfect for her tales of female village life--of healers who, unable to bare children themselves, enmesh themselves in the lives of girls such as Nyolo. In spite of a certain timbral sameness throughout the record, Nyolo appears to have discovered a wonderful balance between the forest, the village, and the world at large. <i>--Richard Gehr</i>