International fans of West African highlife music have not had much to be happy about in recent years. Ever since Congo music edged highlife aside as the great pan-national dance music of Africa--a fait accompli by the mid 70s--Ghana and Nigeria have produced precious little of the venerable sound. Highlife came of age during the 1950s, a winning blend of recreational palmwine guitar music, and military brass band music. The style's greatest early exponent, E.T. Mensah, brought calypso into the mix and brought the music to a whole new level. But there's been little new to report in Ghana's highlife scene for most of the past two decades.

That fact alone would make these contemporary highlife recordings from Accra, Ghana, newsworthy. The good news is, they're also fantastic, full of the guitar interplay, emotive vocal harmonies, relaxed horn arranging and soulful warmth that made this music a hit in the first place. These nine tracks feature four groups involving both highlife veterans and rare younger musicians with a feel for the style. Alex Konadu and his International Band, from Kumasi, modern capital of the Ashanti State, contribute four selections, including the opener, "Mafe Wo," with its lulling palmwine intro, easy lobe and sunny horn arrangement. This is classic highlife, briskly rendered in a contemporary recording.

The elliptical tug and slide of palmwine guitar with its prominent use of blues-related dominant-seventh chords is a staple here, nowhere more so than on two acoustic tracks by Kwadwo Tawia. Tawia is that rare item, a palmwine player under 40! He combines electric and acoustic guitars, hand percussion and the seldom heard penpensiwa, a Ghanain thumb piano, creating a rich setting for his lithe, expressive voice.

This collection's sweetest vocal hook comes from Prince Osei Kofi, an alumnus of highlife's legendary African Brothers. "Enye Mea," a guitar-driven chugger, really hits home with its rich, tuneful call-response-singing. But the prize for guitar tangling goes to Konadu's band, which evokes Congo music, palmwine, and the countrified chromaticism of Chet Atkins on various songs. Kwaku Abeka's Arcobrass Band deliver the rousing closer, a song with the aggressive pump of Trinidadian soca.

This release puts the lie to the notion that Ghana's highlife is dead. Let's hope there's more where this came from!

Contributed by: Banning Eyre for www.afropop.org