Diblo Dibala

Diblo Dibala does one thing, and he does it well. Iwooh is perhaps his best release since the original self-titled Matchatcha disc and, interestingly, it is also not a significant departure. Rather than employ a real horn section, Dibala and his group rely rather heavily on synth hits (as well as the requisite drum machine) and, also like the first Matchatcha disc, at times Dibala displays a fondness for the sound of lightly fuzzy distortion. If those are the down points, there are plenty of high points, making this a worthwhile soukous release. There's more sweet singing than shouted "animation," courtesy of Otis Mbuta, Dibala, Laskino Ngomatchek, and Fede Lawu and, with Dibala's voice being the weakest, they make one of the finest singing crews in modern soukous. The songs are varied, from the predictably amped title cut to the slow dance "Touaya" to the minor key "Vanite" to the spooky retro-Latin sound of "Caliente" to the '80s synth pop of "Mbongwana," filtered through Dibala's soukous sensibility. But what about Dibala's guitar playing, always the focus of any of his albums? He's as fleet as ever here, with his liquid sound intact, buoyed by the very able rhythm guitar of J.P. Kinzaki. So the sum of all these parts is a good Dibala album, although perhaps not on the par of his groundbreaking work with Kanda Bongo Man and Loketo (it seems those days are gone). But if the listener can tolerate the ubiquitous drum machine, then the sweetness that has always been in Dibala's heart is still in ample supply. ~ Tom Chandler



, All Music Guide