In the wake of a US tour which included an appearance at Coachella festival and two New York concerts with Björk (on whose Timbaland-produced "Earth Intruders" single they were featured), Konono N°1  released this live album containing 8 tracks (totalling over 56 minutes of music) which earned a Grammy nomination.

Aside from steaming versions of Kule Kule and Mama Liza (which were featured on the band's acclaimed Congotronics debut album) and Nsimba & Nzuzi (another version of which was released digitally), these pieces had never been released before. They were recorded at Brussels' popular Couleur Café festival by Crammed house produced Vincent Kenis, who rediscovered the band a few years ago and produced the Congotronics album.

Ever since the release of their album, the mighty Konono N°1 have caused a lot of ink to flow, both physical and virtual. For those who might have accidentally missed the previous episodes, let's sum them up as follows:

Formed some 30 years ago in Kinshasa, Congo by Mawangu Mingiedi, the band plays electrified traditional music, largely based on the distortion-fuelled sound of three likembés (thumb-pianos) amplified with makeshift systems of their own device.

International reactions to the album have been exceptional: world music, electronica and especially alternative rock aficionados have all been equally amazed by this otherworldly music, which has driven the press to come up with some surprising comparisons (from Can and Krautrock to Jimi Hendrix, Lee Perry and proto-techno!...).

The band earned a BBC Award for World Music, and prestigious publications ranging from Newsweek, Rolling Stone, The New York Times and The Times to the entire alternative music online community have unanimously been raving about their sound.

PRESS

"It would be true to say that Konono No1 have become the unlikely stars of African experimental music. On the release of their debut album 'Congotronics' they were instantly held up by critics as the missing link between world music, punk, techno and anything else they could cram into a short review, and since then the band have gone from strength to strength.

Headlining festivals across the world and recently appearing on Bjork's latest album there seems to be no stopping Konono No1, and this little stopgap before the next album proper perfectly sums up why there's so much hype. With their electrified likembés the band play a modern take on traditional African music, but it doesn't really sound at all how you'd expect it to - these modified instruments occasionally sound like overdriven electric guitar and occasionally sound like a squealing TB303, so as you can imagine the layered looping motifs are more than explosive.

The band have five new tracks on this impeccably recorded live album and it's safe to say that they've still got it - the sheer energy they put into their music puts so many other acts to shame, this is party music first and foremost and it almost commands you to dance. Through a dense wall of blipping high pitched sounds, whistle toots and those distinctive chants you begin to realise this is too important to be merely given the tag of 'world music', and is far more unifying than that. Ignore the thousands of unwieldy comparisons, what Konono No1 do is something distinctly unique and totally unmissable, and 'Live at Couleur Café' is a great place to start exploring... huge recommendation." - BOOMKAT (UK)