I don’t know what to call this and that’s one of the reasons why I love this nugget from Blind Boy De Vita so much. It’s a mixture of a bunch of things that you would never think would work together, like: North African trance music, progressive rock, South African Zulu guitar work (a style called maskandi) and Soundgarden! The press release mentions Slayer, but this deep, warm baritone takes me back to those halcyon days when Black Hole Sun was a staple on the radio. Despite a very sparse arrangement – only acoustic guitar, percussion and a brief appearance of an electric guitar – the song has so much drive and energy that it feels like a full band is actually throwing down. It feels refreshing hearing someone wringing so much flavour out of an acoustic guitar box.
The video accompanying the song is all late night fun. It features Blind Boy De Vita and a couple of his cohorts running amok through empty streets and just acting plain silly. It’s the type stuff that you get into with good friends when the vibe is right. Hold The Night is the first single from Cumpa, a full length full of playful, bastard styles, so I was told. The record will be released shortly, and it’ll hit your local candy shop in the form of delicious bar of chocolate, blended especially for this release by a company called Schöki. Yum!
