Buraka Som Sistema's Debut Album To Get Domestic Release

BY Brock ThiessenPublished Jan 27, 2009

After a spell of import-only status, Buraka Som Sistema's hotly tipped Black Diamond is going domestic. Courtesy of Fabric, this kuduro-loaded debut by the grimey Portuguese outfit has been given the due date of April 7, promising to make people "dance like hell, sweat like hell and scream like hell."

While Buraka Som Sistema aren't exactly yet a household name, you may have caught the group's M.I.A.-equipped single "Sound of Kuduro" sometime last year. It made some of those "best songs of 2008" lists and caught its fair bit of props for the track's intense slab of kuduro, which, if you're unfamiliar with, is given this simple definition over at Wikipedia: "house music with programming inspired by traditional carnival music from the Caribbean and Angola." Obviously there's a bit more to it than that but you can just check this out to help fill in the blanks.

If you're wondering about that title, Black Diamond, it's apparently a reference to the corruption that regularly goes down in the oil and diamond businesses, subjects close to home for Buraka Som Sistema, the press release says. Also, if you're looking for a nicely worded summation of what these BSS guys are all about, the release explains: "Buraka Som Sistema make music that kicks and pulses and spits with a kind of urban multiculturalism that can only be found in modern globalized society, one in which beats and languages and culture blow over political borders as easily as the wind."

There's no sign of any North American live dates yet for Buraka Som Sistema but here's the tracklisting for Black Diamond:

1. "Luanda/Lisboa"
2. "Sound of Kuduro"
3. "Aqui Para Voces"
4. "Kalemba (Wegue Wegue)"
5. "Kurum"
6. "IC19"
7. "Tiroza"
8. "Genera"
9. "New Africas, Pt. 1"
10. "New Africas, Pt. 2"
11. "Beef"
12. "Black Diamond"

Buraka Som Sistema "Kalemba (Wegue Wegue)"

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