In order to gather information about this release, I had a quick gander over at ~scape to see about any pre-release notes or reviews they had posted about the upcoming album by the now Dusseldorf-based, Mapstation. To my anger and disappointment, the review posted by the label was riddled with colonial undertones, referencing the “borrowed” sounds underscoring The Africa Chamber as originating from a geographical and symbolic place “awaiting our exploration” through a “sonic journey” of lands unknown. Not only is it problematic to cite the entire continent of Africa as a source of influence (what, exactly, is the European or North American sound?), but also more troubling is the unapologetic assumption that Stefan Schneider, aka Mapstation, is on some colonial musical mission, stealing African sounds as part of some retracing of the “subconscious cultural amalgamations” that have come to define some contemporary electronic music, especially Schneider’s own previous two collaborative albums, Map Of Africa (2002) and Loin D’Afrique (2006).

At risk of writing a review of a review, however, let me say honestly that throughout this fantastic release, Schneider himself does anything other than “explore,” in a colonial sense, the sounds to which the review at ~scape refers. Indeed, by collaborating with Annie Whitehead (trombone), Thomas Klein (drums), and Nicholas Addo-Nettey (percussion), the latter of course a past contributor to the 1970s anti-colonialist projects of Fela Kuti, the album pays homage to a post-colonial hybridity of geographical and musical sources, and succeeds in taking seriously the way digital and analogue sounds can merge to make that paradoxical blend of complex minimalist music.

As the first project produced by Schneider himself, The Africa Chamber is by no means a perfect album. Seemingly ironic, or perhaps purposeful given its tendency to harm, “Cobra” seems completely out of place after two quality introductory tracks, “Mchiki Cha” and “Unitel.” The obnoxious (space?) sounds of “Cobra,” mixed with an otherwise abrasive loop, immediately jostled me to the point of a skip-urge. However, after the almost-as-obnoxious space outro, “Ensemble of Four,” we are brought back to the main collaborative focus on the album in the track, “Bells and Lions,” which features the percussion sounds of Addo-Nettey, the horns of Whitehead, and the drums of Klein. “Return of the Hunters,” the second to last track, is the standout, a slow-building track of layered sounds best heard with headphones.

It might be easy to think of this album as some “borrowed” mishmash of electronic and “primitive” sounds, a blending of here and there, synthetic and analogue, a blurring of the boundaries between the immaterial (affect, flow) and the material (geographical space). However, Mapstation’s The Africa Chamber presents much more originality than just another case of strung-together loops of borrowed sounds. It is, indeed, a very focused and more mature album than his previous Africa collaborations and features a complex fusion of digital loops, ambient sounds, hand drums and horns. Highly recommended.