Erik Aliana
Paris, Île-de-France, France | Established. Jan 01, 1999 | MAJOR
Music
Press
A soulful son of the soil
Erik Aliana is a singer and percussionist from Cameroon. He lives in the urban environment of Yaoundé and this recording, backed by his group Korongo Jam, reflects the bustle of the city. However it is musically counter-balanced by the sparsity and beauty of rural Cameroonian styles. This is Aliana’s third album and it is a highly accomplished and musically sophisticated recording. His earlier releases were influenced by Cameroonian makossa and bikutsi styles but Just My Land is a more international-sounding affair. That’s presumably a result of Aliana’s touring in Africa and Europe, and collaborations with musicians from different cultures.
The predominantly acoustic instrumentation has been sensitively produced to retain its respective natural timbres. Aliana has a strikingly beautiful voice. Much of his vocal style is borrowed from the distinctive Cameroonian rainforest Pygmy tradition, with its characteristic yodel sound. However this album takes that rural rainforest musical beauty and transports it into a technical and urban musical setting. It’s a very enjoyable, impressive and appealing fusion. - Martin Sinnock
Erik Aliana, the song of the Great Forest
The label Buda Musique provides a new measure of excellence in publishing Just My Land by Erik Aliana, singer of great finesse, whose smooth voice is alone a miracle. Having grew up between Yaoundé and his village in central Cameroon, Erik Aliana values the cultural heritage of the people o'sananga by mingling with more urban orchestrations. He also seeks to convey the spirituality of the Great Equatorial Forest in his flexible tempos, his songs inspired by Pygmy polyphony and traditional lessons of wisdom. The sincerity with which he accomplishes this mission is the beauty of Just My Land. - Louis-Julien Nicolaou
Guitars, percussions aplenty, rich vocal work : here are the strengths of Cameroonian Erik Aliana. Throughout songs rooted in the traditions of the Beti’s lands, populated beneficent spirits and healers, he find the storytelling talent of his compatriot Francis Bebey. Behind the smooth bore also an often serious message as the situation of Pygmy populations threatened by deforestation. - François-Xavier Gomez
Bikutsi to makossa, the Cameroonian singer continues in Just My Land, his alert and volatile round trips between his native village in the Rainforest and urban excitement of Yaoundé. His voice soft, delicate, and his talent of storyteller make the rest, in a mixture of funky guitars, pygmy flutes and wooded keystrokes (balafons…) with joyful mystic. - Anne Berthod
From rural Cameroon, light voice, haunting melodies, clicking bikutsi rhythms and a strong input of pygmy/forest sensibility. Erik Aliana speaks out for local culture, local ecology, and not to be blinded by the false lights of the West. Quite right. -
Erik Aliana, héraut du village
// Erik Aliana, herald of the village - Bertrand Lavaine
Erik Aliana : le bon tempo
// Erik Aliana : the good tempo - Jean Berry
Avec «Just My Land», Erik Aliana chante les épopées des gens oubliés
Le nouvel album de cet artiste camerounais est un long chant pour un retour aux sources.
// With "Just My Land", Erik Aliana singing epics forgotten people
The new album of the Cameroonian artist is a long song for a homecoming. - Raoul Mbog
Le chanteur camerounais Erik Aliana, qui jouit aussi d'une grande notoriété au Japon, revient sur scène avec son troisième album "Just my land". Dans cet opus, il revient aux sources des mélodies traditionnelles typiques des forêts de l'Afrique centrale.
// Cameroonian singer Erik Aliana, also enjoys a high reputation in Japan, returns to the stage with his third album "Just my land." In this album, he returns to the roots of traditional melodies typical of the forests of Central Africa. - Nathalie Sarfati
Discography
2013 "Just My Land" (Buda Records / Universal France) - Selection Fip, radio France
2011 "Songs from Badissa" (Buda Musique / Universal France) - Selection Fip, radio France
2006 "Just African" (Erik Aliana / Les Bouches B.)
Photos
Bio
Erik ALIANA respects, illustrates, enriches and occasionally shakes up
the musical traditions of his native Cameroon. Singer, multi-instrumentist, he
found the band Korongo Jam in 1999 with a successful start in Africa and
appeared in 2003 the revelation of MusiquesMetisses for his first European
tour, followed in 2005 by the United-States. Between 2006 and 2012, he was
touring in Japon and Korea, participating in creations (Chiwoniso, Manu Dibango).
In 2011, he signed on the french label BudaMusique, this second album in 2013,
the critically acclaimed.
ErikAliana : lead
FrancisDschoutezo : bass
FabienPrezat : guitar
AymericKrol : drums/percussions
BienvenueNyounay : balafons
// (biography 100 words above, more text info bellow)
Before leaving to the city, Erik Aliana summoned the spirits of shamans, the memories of his chilhood in the countryside, and the perceptiveness and humour of elders
Erik respects, illustrates, enriches and occasionally shakes up the musical traditions of his native Cameroon. The dazzling range of his unique voice colours the streets of the large city where he now lives, with original rural rhythms emphasizing this urban bustle. It is from this encounter and confrontation between village and megalopolis that he draws the beauty, authenticity and spirital dimension of his art. On this demanding and delicate path, he is fully accompanied by his brothers and allies, the awesone ambianceurs of Korongo Jam. His sharp erudition and soft energy have earned Erik Aliana to become a key African figure in Europe.
If he lives now in Paris, Erik Aliana grew up between Yaound and Badissa, the village, where he originates in the province of Center-Cameroon. Two cultural divides and two ways of life that have marked his understanding of music. Woven of bikutsi, kindo and makossa, makossa, inspired by the atmosphere of Yaounde, the celebrations and rites of the village, the Pygmies sounds and the moods of the rainforest, the work of Erik Aliana perpetuates a fragile heritage at the same time it renews the African musical creation.
Using traditional instruments like the mvet, balafon, sanza, eworo and other percussions, his talent is expressed in a mix of genres and times when mixing traditional polyrhythms with a jazzy bass, funk touches or cha cha cha ... His texts sung in Osananga, French and English, portray a beautiful and alive Africa, also deal with topics of current society inspired by the wisdom of the ancients.
After a successful start in Cameroon, Erik and his group Korongo Jam toured the African continent. In 2003, he appeared in the revelation of Musiques Mtisses Angoulme Festival in France, for his first major European tour. Followed the USA in 2005 (Festival International de Louisiane, Californie, Nevada, etc...) with Bernard Schmidt Productions Inc. who produced several North American tours for Prince Diabat and WOFA! (Percussions & Dance from Guinea, W. Africa: 10 North American tours between 1998 and 2003 in over than 125 venues and festivals). In 2006, 2007 and 2009, he was in Japan (Festival Sukiyaki Meets The World), and Korea (with the National orchestra of classic and traditional music, Gwandju International Festival). In parallel, Erik Aliana participated in several creations whose the musical tale Lenfant pirogue et lhomme crocodile alongside Manu Dibango in 2008, and Sukiafrika in 2010/2011 : an Asia-Africa unique creative project named as the title of one of his songs, alongside the Zimbabwean singer Chiwoniso.
After a first autoproduction album Just African (2006), 2011 was the year of his first collaboration with the french label Buda Musique, releasing the album Songs from Badissa . A song that borrows all the nuances and furrows infinite vibrations, polyphony of voices intertwined in lace, rhythms rubbed briskly in their complexity, traditional instruments of forested sonorities, flutes, sounds, hissings, whistling That we salute in this solar and subtle record? Its fine architecture, and the undeniable talent of Erik Alianas arranger. Songs from Badissa is listening without moderation. Anne-Laure Lemancel RFI Musique. (Release in Selection FIP French National Radio).
In 2013, hes back in studio to record Just my land in Live conditions. Arrived in stores at the end of 2013 (international physical distribution), the album is also Selection FIP. Erik Aliana presented its new repertory at Au Fil des Voix Paris Festival in February, very well received by critics.
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