Sinkane: Life & Livin’ It review – sunny-side-up sing-alongs and slinky rhythms

Cult Nigerian electro-funkster William Onyeabor, whose 70s and 80s music experienced a renaissance in recent years, sadly died last month, but he has a spiritual successor in Ahmed Gallab, AKA Sinkane. Gallab’s time leading the Atomic Bomb! Band – in which he and guest members such as Damon Albarn and David Byrne reinterpreted Onyeabor’s music for a world tour – has had a clear influence on this, his sixth record. The Brooklyn native was always a purveyor of soulful global-pop, but here he is fully sunny-side-up, harnessing Onyeabor’s pop positivism, and blending Afrobeat, supple whammy-funk and shimmering krautrock to vibrant effect. Never mind the pap lyrics about “peace within our minds”, these are perfect daytime Glasto songs, filled with bright horns (Telephone), easy sing-alongs (Favourite Song, easily his Fantastic Man), feathery falsetto and the loopy fizz of 70s analogue synth Prophet-5. Passenger, perhaps his most realised song, slows the rhythm down to slinky. Sinkane has nowhere near the fame he deserves; may this be the album that gives you life.