Buraka Som Sistema - Komba

Buraka Som Sistema’s progressive Portuguese take on Angolan kuduro shows that there are no borders in music, and also that there are no seasons. While the temperature plummets and Britain heads into winter, Buraka Som Sistema’s second album proper still seems to glisten from the sweat of an all night beach party.

‘Komba’ does more than an average dance record should – make you want to move your body – and immerses you in the sensation of being in a club. There’s a physicality to it. The wall of electro-house-techno-soca sounds pushes against your ears as if being pumped out of a speaker stack and against your body like the crowd at 2am in a packed club.

The two singles that have already been released from the record, ‘(We Stay) Up All Night’ and ‘Hangover [Bababa]’, are the prime examples of this humid euphoria. I have seen ‘Hangover’ dropped in a few DJ sets this year and every time it takes the room to another level.

Not every track on the album reaches this anthemic peak, but there are other highlights. The bubbling ‘Tira O Pe’ and glitchy laser battle of ‘Vem Curtir’ are nestled in among less notable beats. And ‘Lol & Pop’ is what grime would sound like if London was drenched in Iberian sun 365 days a year. That’s not to say the other songs are bad. They probably won’t have you jabbing at your phone to identify them on Shazam when they are dropped in a club, but they will keep you on the dancefloor.

With the success of acts like Diplo’s Major Lazer and genres such as baile funk and kuduro, world music is a term that is fast being wrestled from the grasp of bearded men in faded WOMAD T-shirts and handed to kids who are happy to dance to music wherever it is from. The geographical origin of the beats isn’t it important, it’s that they sound like a pre-packaged party. And ‘Komba’ demonstrates that Buraka Som Sistema can definitely start a party.