An Ka Sonjé – Edmony Krater, 2018

🇬🇵 🥁 🎹 🌊 🔄 In 2018, Edmony Krater made his return with the release of the album An Ka Sonjé on Franck Descollonges’ label, Heavenly Sweetness. Nearly fifteen years had passed since Kontak, his last album to date. The Guadeloupean tambouyé had lost neither his talent nor his determination to keep gwoka—the genre he helped revitalise with Gwakasonné and Zépiss since the early 1980s—alive. His music remains rich, drawing equally from Creole jazz and Antillean tradition. On percussion, he naturally plays the ka, joined by Pascal Bilongue and Roger Raspail, with Kulusé Souriant on drums. The rhythm section is completed by the excellent Julian Babou on bass, while Frank Souriant on keyboards bridges the harmonies of modern gwoka with jazz and vice versa. The message is clear from the opening words of Nou Kontan, the album’s first track: the joy of coming together to play our music—and the most important word here is indeed “our,” mizik an nou! Krater does not hesitate to refresh the genre by adding synth touches, bordering on electro (Ti Jan Ka), to accompany the drums. In short, it is a link between tradition and modernity, and a fresh start for Edmony Krater, supported by the astute Julien Achard and his label, Digger’s Digest.