Joi Sound System

• Joi Sound System [RealWorld, 2015] B+

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Joi Sound System [RealWorld, 2015]
It does tend schlocky, like so much of what Peter Gabriel's world music label puts out. Yet as someone with no use for Martin Denny or Jean Michel Jarré or for that matter Junoon, I get undifferentiated pleasure from this two-disc best-of by Haroon and Farook Shamsher, Indian-Bangladeshi brothers who came of age mastering '80s sampling and beatmaking skills in their flautist father's East End instrument shop. The Orientalisms they mix in are fresh enough to engage not just gullible U.K. ravers but an openminded outsider like yours truly; their trance grooves don't go for that overbearing Ibiza-style attack. Try the big chorus, kiddie sample, and slow bass hook of "We Need Your Vote" segueing into the hyperactive tablas, reassuring sitars, and female ululations of "My Love." Not everything here is up to that standard. But it's a fair taste. B+