Around Felicite (Original Soundtrack)

Crammed Discs presents the soundtrack album of Alain Gomis' film Félicité (Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival), performed by the inspiration of the movie, the Congolese collective the Kasai Allstars. Includes bonus remixes from the likes of Clap! Clap!, Daedelus and Africaine 808.

Deeply impressed by the music of Kasai Allstars, French-Senegalese director Alain Gomis drew inspiration from their music, and from the voice and character of their singer Muambuyi to write and direct his new fiction movie, entitled 'Félicité'. The film's eponymous protagonist is a proud, free-willed woman who sets out on a breakneck race through the streets of electric Kinshasa to save her son. Her profession: singer with the Kasai Allstars!

The band wrote and performed most of the soundtrack, and appears onscreen playing their own part. Muambuyi's voice is omnipresent, and is being heard every time Félicité (played by Congolese actress Vero Tshanda) sings in the bars of Kinshasa, backed by Kasai Allstars.

The 'Around Félicité' album includes the film's main pieces, performed by Kasai Allstars and by the Kinshasa Symphonic Orchestra (who specially arranged three works by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt), alongside new tracks by Kasai Allstars, as well as interludes consisting of fragments of dialogues and sound bites taken from the soundtrack.