Ampa: PA Versus Chaos
Filigran
Though Ampa hails from Munich, Germany, its music doesn't root itself in any single locale. Instead, the project, the brainchild of producers Philipp Stoya (Compost Black Label) and Adnan Duric-Steinmann (Process Recordings), ranges globally, touching down from Europe and Africa to pretty much wherever else the two want their itinerant sound to travel. Though PA Versus Chaos, their debut album on their own Filigran label, often traffics in a Balearic house-meets-Afrobeat style, it also veers into disco, electronica, and krautrock.
With an uplifting vibe firmly in place, the album's the cure for any number of ailments, physical, spiritual, or otherwise. The ten tracks are clubby, for sure, but they're also melodically strong, each one, its seems, elevated by a polyphonic swirl of guitar and piano hooks and enhanced by arrangements rich in synth textures and percussion. Production on the album is credited exclusively to Stoya and Duric-Steinmann, though vocalist Mishell Ivon appears on “Coming Home” and Tobias Schmidt adds bass and guitar to “Flea.”
Powered by a punchy shuffle groove, “Harmonia D'Amper” stomps from the gate armed with rollicking piano figures, surging synthesizers, and, the crowning touch, a chiming guitar hook that collectively feels like a tropical vacation distilled into five musical minutes. “Milopu” perpetuates the opener's vibe with an insistently chugging blend of raw guitar accents and chattering keyboards, the cut's irrepressible swing one of the best things about it. Things get funky in “Tempora Mutantur” when a pulsing bass line's present to ground the off-kilter drumming and brightly singing piano melodies, and while its presence is subtle, a bit of ska can be detected in “Europaer” if one listens close enough.
“Coming Home” distances itself from the others in adding Ivon's dynamically soulful vocal to the track's jubilant house strut, while funk bass lines and scratchy rhythm guitar figures power “Afronova” in a way that suggests what Remain in Light's first side might have sounded like with the vocals omitted. One could do a whole lot worse than spend fifty minutes in Ampa's company, especially if you're in the part of the world where winter's currently holding you hostage and making you pine for sunkissed days to come.February 2019