“I wanted to go back to a highlife feeling with this album,” explains Ebo Taylor. “The songs are very personal and it is an important part of my music to keep alive many traditional Fante songs, war chants and children’s rhymes.”

‘Appia Kwa Bridge’ is a strident return from the Ghanaian highlife guitar legend. Featuring six new compositions, his sound is more dense and tightly locked than ever with Berlin-based musicians Afrobeat Academy, a rock solid unit since regular touring worldwide following his ‘Love And Death’ album in 2010, including a string of dates for WOMAD. Jochen Stroh works his analogue magic once more from his base at Berlin’s Lovelite Studios.

The album covers a variety of themes dear to Taylor. The title track references a small bridge in Ebo’s hometown of Saltpond on the Cape Coast: “it is a tiny bridge but a place known in the town where people meet, where lovers get together.” The firing, rousing ‘Ayesama’, first demo-ed during the ‘Love And Death’ sessions, is a Fante war cry, a taunt – “what’s your mother’s name?”; ‘Nsu Na Kwan’, based on a Fante proverb, asks “Which is older – the river or the old road” with the sub-text to respect your elders and the brilliant ‘Abonsam’ carries the message that Abonsam (The Devil) is responsible for evil... more
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released January 1, 2012
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