Extra Golden – Hera Ma Nono
A sophomore release was an unlikely development for Extra Golden. Traveling to Kenya and Nairobi in 2000 for documentation on Benga music for his doctoral thesis, Ian Eagleson formed a collaboration with noted Kenyan musician Otieno Jagwasi and his drummer Onyango Wuod Omari of Orchestra Extra Solar Africa. It was with the arrival of Eagleson’s Washington D.C. bandmate, Alex Minoff (of Golden) that spawned the rudimentary recorded album Ok-Oyot System. Merging American rock and boogie with Benga’s guitar-heavy finger picking and bubbling percussions, Extra Golden has a true cross cultural pollination. An invitation to play the Chicago World Music Festival offered them their US concert debut, and the visa clearing hand of Senator Barak Obama (who is honored, as is Benga custome, with the song “Obama”) brought Extra Golden to the states, with a new singer in tow (Opiyo Bilongo replacing the void left by Jagwasi 2005 death). Recorded in actual studio, Hera Ma Nono (“Love In Vain”) sounds fuller in instrumentation and development, with the lightness and jovial spirit making this a perfect Sunday canopy retreat.
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