Two decades after breaking up, this versatile unit from West Africa's Benin returns with some new members and a good deal of their initial creative spark. Save this story Save this story It's been ...

It’s almost a miracle that, tomorrow night, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou will play the London Scala, and that just weeks ago they released their first album proper in decades, Cotonou Club. And, ...

The magnificent Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou are to release their first album in over 20 years next March, the Quietus is pleased to report. Cotonou Club will be out on March 29th via the always ...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. If you didn’t know any better, you might easily mistake Orchestre ...

It isn’t long since the pop past felt truly remote: old video footage was impossible to access, and you could only dream of having seen the great bands of the Sixties and Seventies. Now everything can ...

Le Tout-Puissant Orchestre Poly-Rythmo is a difficult ensemble to follow. For one thing, they have functioned under the names Poly Rythmo de Cotonou, TP Orchestre Poly-Rythmo and L'International ...

It’s been 20 years since Vincent Ahehehinnou and his bandmates in the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou could afford to spend their days playing music. Back then, the band from Benin — formed in the ...

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo has been around in some form since the 1960s, but its exposure outside Africa — for both live performances and recordings — has been severely limited. But that's finally changed, ...

Séance of the ancient and urban, conjured by a spidery, hypnotic rhythm derived from spirit possession ceremonies, the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou owes its black magic to the Vodoun Effect. That ...

Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on X (Opens in new window) Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) The musicians in Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou sing in Fon ...

From the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, the Benin big band were indeed all-powerful. Then, like so many of the post-Independence orchestras, they fell out of fashion for many years. They reunited in ...