Chaino And His African Percussion Safari – Jungle Echoes – LP

Fantôme Phonographique

Fantôme Phonographique present a reissue of Chaino And His African Percussion Safari‘s “Jungle Echoes”, originally released in 1959. The African American bongo player known as Chaino released a series of sublime exotica albums during the 1950s, based around themes of “savage Africa,” supposed tribal mating rituals, voodoo practices, and other concepts of exotica excess.

In a peculiar marketing strategy, Allan recast Johnson as Chaino, “an orphan from a lost tribe in Africa who was taken in by missionaries and brought to the US.” Together they produced eight albums, typically with Johnson playing every instrument himself, with added shouts, whelps and pseudo-African language. “Jungle Echoes”, first issued in 1959 on the Hollywood-based Omega Disc, is a thoroughly mesmerizing example of Chaino‘s over-the-top brilliance.

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