Konono No. 1 kicks off  the 26 the Annual Twilight Dance Series at the Santa Monica Pier on Thursday, July 8, 2010. The group performed Congolese Trance Dance-tronica music.   Konono No. 1, was founded over 25 years ago by Mingiedi, a virtuoso of the likembé, a crude "thumb piano" central to Bazombo trance music from the region near the border of Congo and Angola.   The band's line-up includes three electric likembés (bass, medium and treble), which are amplified through hand-made microphones that Konono builds from magnets salvaged from old car parts. There's also a rhythm section which uses traditional as well as makeshift percussion, your everyday junkyard pots, pans, garbage cans and car parts. Mix in three singers, dancers and a sound system featuring some old-fashioned megaphones and you’ve got Konono No. 1, a most singular sound and musical experience.   With a set of releases for Crammed Discs, their brand new “Assume Crash Position” carries on the strange and spectacular electro-traditional mixtures that make up Konono’s “Congotronics!” One would say “Buzz’n’Rumble from the Urb’n’Jungle!”

Santa Monica Close-up on Facebook