I.F.O.: "Nibiru" [ft. Afrika Bambaataa]
The last time Afrika Bambaataa used his I.F.O. (Identified Flying Object) alias was in 1998 with “Agharta—The City of Shamballa (Subterranean World)”, an uptempo electro-trance hybrid made alongside German rave mainstay WestBam, of all people. Then again, maybe that shouldn’t be surprising: Bambaataa has a long history of unexpected collaborations—see, for instance, 1984′s “World Destruction”, by Time Zone, his trio with John Lydon, of PiL and the Sex Pistols, and Bill Laswell, the avant-dub Zelig of the Downtown scene.
Now he has resurrected the project—or someone has, anyway—for Nicolas Jaar‘s Other People label. The single in question, “Nibiru”, is credited to I.F.O. featuring Afrika Bambaataa, but it sounds a lot more like Jaar’s sticky, sidewinding approach to samplers and synthesizers.
The Soulsonic Force DJ surfaces early in the track to proclaim, “We are the indigenous beings of the universe,” but his voice is slow and thick, as if sampled off a 45 played back at 33. The whole track is pitched artificially slow, in fact, from an extended strip of jazz drumming, wreathed in the clicks and pops of worn vinyl, to the sluggish breakbeat that kicks in once the tune shifts into high gear. If you found the song on 12-inch, you’d probably toggle the tempo switch to make sure you were playing it at the right speed. But no, it’s supposed to be like this: slow, narcotic, suffused in ring-modulated buzz and drums that roll like thunderheads.
“Africa,” Bambaataa whispers at regular intervals, and then, “Nibiru!”—a reference to a supposed planet beyond Neptune that was the source of astronauts who visited ancient Sumerian peoples. And why not? It sounds simultaneously very old—those leathery drums, that vinyl hiss—and beamed back from the future, as though every strip of static and squeal were a sequence of code we hadn’t figured out how to decipher yet. As mysteries go, it’s pretty damn groovy.
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