Published on: 2026-11-05
Source: Melodiya – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
The core of Amabano was formed in the late 1970s — at that time, Burundi was undergoing a decades-long civil war, and the group’s founders Antoine Rudjerinyange, known under the pseudonym Africanova, and David Nikidza performed in neighboring Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda, even managing to play in the military ensemble Suicide Revolutionary Jazz Band (this group was personally backed by the notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin). In 1978, the musicians returned to Burundi, where they effectively became the main ensemble of the national radio. They initially performed as The Settlers but soon changed their name to Amabano. The group quickly gained status as the country’s leading musical star, and in 1980, through the efforts of the Burundian Ministry of Culture, they went to Europe to participate in the ‘Golden Mill’ contest (an initiative of Dutch radio, with over four hundred groups from the African continent participating) — and won there. However, the album released in the USSR remained until recently Amabano’s only official release.
The record was recorded by Soviet sound engineers in the then Burundian capital Bujumbura in 1987, mixed in Moscow, and released in a minimal run in the USSR a year later — aided by personal contacts of domestic diplomats, as well as the fact that the music of Amabano got into the hands of the famous ethnomusicologist, experimental composer, and at that time editor of Melodiya, Boris Tikhomirov, who was responsible for the famous series “Music of the Countries of Asia and Africa.” When the album was ready and the records reached Burundi, Amabano could not receive their author’s copies: they left the country after another stage of the Hutu-Tutsi ethnic confrontation broke out. Soon the group disbanded forever. In 2019, the album was reissued for the first time on the Finnish label Afro7 under the title Amsterdam Ticket.
Stylistically, Amabano’s music is not so easy to describe: it mixes many globally African elements of those years — psychedelic rock, the complex polyrhythm of Congolese rumba and soukous, dirty dance funk in the spirit of James Brown, the influence of afrobeats and highlife can be felt (Amabano’s musicians couldn’t have missed Fela Kuti and Ebo Taylor!), but there are also completely unique local intonations, adorned with traditional vocals performed in the Kirundi language.
The opening track of the album, Amabano, is a sunny funk number where, against the backdrop of an ironclad rhythm section, the psychedelic-funk guitar, cosmic synthesizer, and brass take turns soloing. The title track “Talking Parrot” can be called the album’s highlight: a swift instrumental composition that brings to mind the best examples of Afro-funk and Afro-rock of those years — Assagai, Oscar Salley, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, and at times even the Afro-British Cymande. At the beginning of the composition, there is indeed a short sample of a parrot’s voice, which, according to pedants, was taken from the record “Gosha the Talking Parrot,” released on Melodiya in 1980. Besides Gosha’s voice, the album includes the roar of a lion, sounds of the savannah, and other “natural” elements which, however, do not harm the original compositions at all but rather add charm to the recording. On “I Go, I Go” and “Goodbye,” female voices come to the forefront — Amabano featured three vocalists singing simultaneously. The album closes with the pastoral “Oh, Burundi” — a lyrical and somewhat naive declaration of love by the group to their much-suffering homeland, performed by Chanjo Amisi.
The album, which became one of the most incredible curiosities in the history of Soviet vinyl records and a coveted artifact for collectors of African rock, has returned after almost forty years, this time on colored transparent vinyl. The color of the record — yellow or green — can be seen through a window on the front side of the sleeve. The matrices were made from the original tapes stored in the Melodiya archive for nearly forty years. The sound engineer for restoration and remastering is Elena Barykina.
Ilya Rasskazov, Musical Life, 01.10.2026
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