''Virunga Volcano'' is an album by the Congolese musician

Samba Mapangala Samba Mapangala is a Congolese singer and bandleader who has spent most of his five-decade musical career in Kenya, where he notably created and led Virunga, which has been one of the most popular bands in East Africa for more than 35 years. He ...

, released in 1990. He is credited with his band, Orchestre Virunga. The album was first released, in Europe, in 1985. "Malako" was a hit in Africa, and is regarded as a perennial classic. The album was a breakthrough for Mapangala, and led to steady international touring.

Production

The album was produced by Justus Musyoka Kasoya. The album's sound is marked by double saxophones and vocals in Lingala and Swahili.

Critical reception

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

wrote that "Virunga's snaky bass and nimble guitar come off as spaced and delicate as the falsetto leads Mapangala trades with Fataki, his only permanent sideman, and the twin saxophones are low-budget funky, their cheesy embouchure stuck between alto and soprano." '' The Gazette'' determined that "there are delicious guitar and saxophone performances, undulating bass lines—and it's thoroughly absorbing, a silkier, jazzier sound than the modern rat-tat-tat of Zairean soukous"; the paper later labeled the album "a classic." The '' Herald-American'' called ''Virunga Volcano'' "electrified and funky, borrowing as much from Western pop as from Kenyan tradition." The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' noted that "the real ace in the hole is Mapangala's strategic use of horns for earthy, bluesy interjections—their mournful harmonizing is crucial in elevating 'Maloko' to genuine classic status." In 2001, ''

The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, first published on 5 February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Tele ...

'' deemed ''Virunga Volcano'' "one of the great guitar discs in the history of African music, also blessed by Mapangala's warm vocals."

Track listing

References

{{Authority control Samba Mapangala albums 1990 albums Virgin Records albums