WOMAD

Think Of One

From Belgium

It’s an unlikely success story. Take a bunch of Belgians with a penchant for the kind of colourful clothing you only otherwise encounter on Rivermead weekend and watch them seduce the rest of Europe with their performances from the back of a modified truck (one that seems to have half a Spanish galleon nailed to the back of it). Sounds like a recipe for disaster – that is, until you realise that these folk have an unerring taste for global sounds and fuse together the finest rhythms from right around our spinning planet of sound. But this is no slavish copying. Instead, Think Of One create something very much their own that’s somehow unlike anything you ever heard. Refusing to merely plunder existing sounds, they’re always keen to hit the road and collaborate with indigenous musicians, whether in Morocco, Congo or the Arctic Circle. The recording sessions for their latest album, Trafico, saw them enjoying an extended stay in the north-eastern Brazilian city of Recife and the results were nothing short of a transcontinental block party. No-one said it better than f:roots magazine when summing up the Think Of One sound – “a mix of kicking brass, punky energy, funky basslines, jazz experimentation and rhythms and vocals from just about everywhere”. Leave all preconceptions at the door.In a few words… Boundary-busting Belgians break for the border