Call it synergy: Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s self-titled third album (repackaged here as Zulu Rock) paired the urgent optimism of the French singer with the sweet, sunny sounds of local South African musicians. Predating Paul Simon’s worldbeat excursions on Graceland, Zulu Rock expanded on the funky Afro/Caribbean flirtations of Mambo Nassau, adding in bits of reggae, French pop, and African highlife, while removing the last traces of the atonal post-punk bite Descloux showed early in her career. Throughout the liner notes of all her reissues on the Ze label, Descloux is described as someone that empathically embraced the culture she was in, whether it be Paris, Manhattan, Nassau, Johannesburg, or Rio de Janeiro. But don’t call it dilletantism, call it an infatuation with music and life. And that’s something inspiring.

CBS Records / Ze Records
1984 / 2006
[Michael F. Gill]