Brian d’Souza has always had a wandering ear. Since the 2011 release of his debut single as Auntie Flo, the DJ and producer has released four albums that traverse everything from South African kwaito to Ghanaian highlife, Ugandan pop and Afro-Cuban jazz. In 2020, he launched an online radio station playing exclusively ambient electronics, while his 2022 collaboration with percussionist Sarathy Korwar, Shruti Dances, explored the pulse of Indian classical ragas. On his latest album, In My Dreams (I’m a Bird and I’m Free), d’Souza centres his genre-crossing curiosities on his own Kenyan and Goan heritage, producing his most personal and cohesive record to date.
Recorded over five years across Kenya, New Zealand, India, Brazil and beyond, the 10 tracks on the album are expansive in scope but only run to a slight 35 minutes. The result makes for a dense and detailed listening experience. While opener Nightjar features poet Joshua Idehen expounding on the album’s theme of musical migration over ambient synths, the record soon veers, into propulsive Kenyan disco (Green City), Turkish nursery rhyme melodies (Çatlak Patlak), Brazilian berimbau (Freedom of Birds) and Korean traditional flute (Sandpiper).
D’Souza has a great knack for blending dancefloor rhythms with unexpected production flourishes. Green City mixes Afrobeat fanfares with euphoric piano house stabs, while Çatlak Patlak plays Turkish rhymes over a thumping post-punk drum groove, and Bird’s Eye View erupts from an offbeat pop melody into Tiësto-era trance synths. There is an odd moment when the eerie conch shell moans of Nighthawk arrive, jarring amid the record’s otherwise bright instrumentals. But it’s a blip in an otherwise joyous album. Closing on the yearning vibrato of d’Souza’s auntie Florie (his stage namesake) singing a Goan hymn over Yohan Kebede’s plaintive Rhodes chords, d’Souza brings his own story into view, ending his search for new sounds on a moving memory of home.
Also out this month
Dutch-Surinamese flautist Ronald Snijders releases a deeply funky fusion record in Penta (Night Dreamer), touching on the rock-solid groove of Weather Report with tracks like Basic Things, as well as exploring intricate Latin jazz arrangements through the clarity of his flute playing. Ngoni master Aboubakar Traoré and his Balima group explore kinetic West African rhythm on Sababu (Zephyrus Records), soaring on the guitar and ngoni interplay of Politiki. Japanese producer Shoko Igarashi’s second album Onsen Music (Tigersushi Records) is a soothing journey through 80s city pop and experimental electronics, producing 12 whimsical, wonky compositions.
