- It’s a funny dichotomy about music: while there is no shortage of ego amongst the world’s musical practitioners, the medium demands that participants submit their individual will to the collective rules of harmony, timing and arrangement.

Still, few musical groups take teamwork quite as far as embaire of Uganda’s Basoga tribe, who construct huge xylophone style instruments out of slabs of wood. Up to eight percussionists then sit around the instrument, playing complex polyrhythmic pieces where it is extremely difficult for the listener to tell which musician is making what sound.

Nakibembe Embaire Group are one such ensemble, and they are making their recording debut with a self-titled album – released on the wonderfully eclectic and adventurous Uganda-based Nyege Nyege Tapes label.

The songs of Nakibembe Embaire Group are constructed from intricate layers of embaire rhythms and melodies, accompanied often a maraca-style shaker and group call-and-response vocals. Elements drop in and out as the songs unfold, sometimes subtly and sometimes dramatically. At times it is played at a dizzying tempo - a nice reminder for fans of the hardcore variants of rock and electronic music, that traditional styles from around the world have long been exploring the musical thrills of pure speed.

Taking their co-operative approach even further, Nakibembe Embaire Group have collaborated across cultures to hand over a third of their debut album to remixes from Indonesian industrial techno producers Gabber Modus Operandi and Harysa Wahono. There are times when the embaire certainly sounds reminiscent of contemporary electronic music, but it’s still quite a sonic journey from banging on wooden logs in a Ugandan village to the strobes and soundsystems of a Jakarta warehouse rave. The resulting remixes come out very different to the originals, especially the track 160 which is incredibly dark and creepy. It’s fun to imagine what the response would have been when this tune was presented to the embaire musicians as someone’s interpretation of their traditional artform.

But it’s the traditional songs that are the main attraction here – joyous, danceable, communal music that takes the most basic of natural materials and fashions it into a complex and highly skilled polyphony. The invitation is there even for us Western listeners – to release our individual preconceptions and submit to the rhythms of the embaire.

- Andy Paine.