Spiritual jazz, highlife, disco, and soul – the international debut album of Ghanaian gospel singer Florence Adooni writhes with an endless array of bold genre fusions. Every groove here is rich, vibrant, as Adooni’s powerhouse voice breathes life into a party of playful arrangements and erratic polyrhythms.
Adooni was born in Kumasi, Ghana’s home of highlife music, to parents of Frafra heritage, a region renowned for its embarrassment of soul and disco riches. So whilst the effortless fusions might be the most natural thing in the world to the singer, the execution here is otherworldly – her band of Ghanaian virtuosos go from cosmically daydreaming to energetic floor-filling in the blink of an eye.
The past five years have seen Adooni tour the world with the rest of the Philophon roster, initially providing falsetto backing vocals for Alogte Oho & His Sounds of Joy, before beginning to perform solo. Since the release of her first single, 2021’s Frafra-language hymn ‘Mam Pe’ela Su’ure’ (My Heart is Pure)’, Adooni has been concocting her solo debut with Philaphon founder and Heliocentrics drummer Max Weissenfeldt, who works as Adooni’s songwriting partner. The fruits of the duo’s collaboration are sumptuous, as each one of A.O.E.I.U.’s seven songs offer cascades upon cascades of intertwining melodies and infectious vocal hooks.
The songs are in a mixture of English and Frafra, and the styles on show vary from disco fuelled by dirty synth-bass (‘Otomo Da Naba’) to luscious jazz-pop (‘Mam Pe’ela Su’ure’). What stands out across Adooni’s debut album, however, is the scampering rhythm section. Every track is elevated to a danceable frenzy by a dizzying polyrhythmic shuffle – familiar to anyone with a fascination for West African music, particularly Ghanaian styles – yet it pairs sublimely with the modern soul jazz arrangements.
The title track is the album’s centrepiece, an astral voyage that really works as a manifesto for all that’s contained on this album. ‘A. O. E. I. U.’ is a ten minute sprawl that begins with a luscious expanse of spaced-out jazz, recalling the infinity of contemporaries in the UK like The Comet is Coming and Emma-Jean Thackray, before Adooni’s band spring to life with turbo-charged highlife drums and satisfyingly twiddly soukous guitar licks. Adooni’s vocals alternate between a chorus of the open-vowel mantra of the song’s title, and spoken word phrases delivered with a kind of wild-eyed joy. “Music is the art of time!” she exclaims, enamoured by the festival of cosmic jazz unfurling beneath her words.
A. O. E. I. U. (or, An Ordinary Exercise In Unity) is a sublime debut album that brings together styles from Ghana and the West in one deeply satisfying and nourishing package. The songs that Adooni has written with Weissenfeldt are immediate, beautifully arranged, and full of heart, and in increasingly cynical, jaded times, it is the perfect anecdote.
