#92 Feat. Banner in Deep House

Akoko Ajeji means Strange Time in Yoruba. All the tracks on this album are in complex polymeter, meaning that they use multiple time signatures simultaneously. Each instrumental part is composed in a different meter, and consequently the instruments shift phase or slip relative to each other. For example, the bass could be in 4/4, the organ in 5/4, the hi-hat in 7/4, and so on. Loops of different lengths gradually diverge and converge, producing intricate but non-random patterns of interference that resemble improvisation. The albums themes are trance, music, and dancing, and its titles are in Yoruba because Yoruba has evocative words for these themes. Polymeter determines not only the rhythm, but the melody and harmony too, using techniques that are as radical as the pitch sets of atonal music were in the 1920s. Korda created a custom MIDI sequencer in order to make this album, and the result is a new approach to composition, and a new type of algorithmic music. Akoko Ajeji extends polymeter into new domains such as permutational harmony generation, and fuses algorithmic music with techno and jazz.

Chris Korda