Afropop & Oranges in the Houston Summer Heat, Tonight

I haven’t seen a lot of press on it (although, admittedly, I haven’t been scouring Google Reader much this week), so I figured I’d make a quick mention of a show this evening… Nairobi-by-way-of-NY band Extra Golden is coming through town, playing tonight at the ever-interesting Orange Show (2402 Munger) at around 7PM.

And it should be a very cool show, going by the band’s new album on Thrill Jockey, Hera Ma Nono. After brief listens earlier on, I was able to slap it on the home stereo this morning and was blown away by the joyous, happy sound — it’s like it’s the actual sound of sunshine, seriously. I know just about zero about benga, the type of Kenyan/African music this band fuses to good-old American-style rock & roll, but the stuff on Hera Ma Nono sounds amazing. It all has all has an awesomely relaxed beat to it, plus a nice, almost gospel-sounding vocal delivery on several songs. Despite the seemingly wide gulf between the two source musics being mashed together, it all works astoundingly well, so much so that it doesn’t feel like it was put together. It feels natural as hell.

There’s even a track entitled “Obama,” which — duh — is an ode to America’s currently most famous Kenyan-American, who apparently helped the band (pre-presidential run) get visas to come to Chicago for a U.S. gig at the 2006 Chicago World Music Festival (heck, according to the press materials, the song also thanks his wife & mom for their help). And yeah, I can’t help but like a band that namechecks our hopefully-future president in a cheery little Luo song of praise…

Anyway, I’m stumped for anything else to say to describe these folks, so let the music do the rest of the talking — check out the band’s Myspace page to hear what the heck I’m blathering on about, then head on over to Munger for the real-live deal.