{"id":14368,"date":"2014-03-17T12:10:43","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T17:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=14368"},"modified":"2014-03-17T12:12:10","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T17:12:10","slug":"african-drums-by-luke-despain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2014\/03\/african-drums-by-luke-despain\/","title":{"rendered":"African Drums<\/em>, by Luke Despain"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was growing up, my dad had some record albums by a guy with the fabulous name of Babatunde Olatunji<\/a>, who specialized in African drum music. This is almost a worthless statement;<\/strong> African is a big place, with over 50 countries and dog knows how many different cultures, so “African drum music” is almost the same as saying “American guitar music” – it doesn’t specify any particular style. Nevertheless, Olatunji tackled quite a few of them, and I find some of them to be excellent. Others, not so much.<\/p>\n

So I was searching around for music samples to know which album I should purchase, and came across this independent composition. I can find little information on composer Luke Despain, but it seems pretty clear that he’s not a professional musician or ‘big name,’ which is a shame – he should be. This track is somewhat misleadingly titled African Drums<\/em>, since it’s synth work all the way and the drums aren’t a huge part of it. Call it anything you like, however – this is a pretty damn solid piece of work, and considerably better than a lot of popular music out now. Despain has an excellent sense of balance and progression, and if I knew more music terms I’d explain this better, but since I don’t, you can fill in for yourself.<\/p>\n