Nomo

Yeah, Vampire Weekend have gotten a lot of attention for messing around with Congolese music, but this year's boom in Afro-pop—both its originators and its offshoots—has gone a lot deeper: Soundway's Nigeria Special compilations and Analog Africa's excellent African Scream Contest have unearthed countless amazing nuggets from the past, while Seun Kuti has dropped a fantastic debut, Many Things, that picks up right where his father Fela left off. But one of the best current practitioners of Afro-soul hybridization is a band from Ann Arbor, of all places, and with their recent album Ghost Rock, Nomo have spread out into wider-spanning turf. Not content to simply Xerox the sounds of the Afro-beat pioneers of the '70s, they sprawl out into Miles-in-'72 acid-fusion jams, astral funk, lock-tight Krautrock and just about anything else with a pliable, propulsive rhythmic pulse. With Maps of Norway. 18+.
Thu., Aug. 14, 8 p.m., 2008