Wow, it sure is recorded loud.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo has three surround SACDs "Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu", "Long Walk to Freedom", and "Raise Your Spirit Higher". Remembering the group's work on Paul Simon's "Graceland", I grabbed this one. Have not spun it in a long while, but it got a lot of play when I first bought it.
Here you'll find 10 South African men singing a capella, largely in their native tongue -- chanting, singing in harmony, making interesting sound effects. As I have no idea what they're singing about (most of the time), most of the disc has the same effect as instrumental music to me -- I can listen and enjoy the sound without getting pulled out of my work by the lyrics. (It's sad, but I don't get much listening done anymore if I'm not working on something else.)
The musicians (vocalists) are spread around you as is the case with many of the HeadsUp/Telarc/Concord multichannel SACDs. I've not listened to this or any other LBM album in stereo, and I have no intentions of ever doing so -- this stuff is made to be heard in heard in surround, there's no going back after hearing it this way.
I would really prefer it if all the songs were sung entirely in whatever language most of them are sung in -- when they jump into English (on 5/6 of the 13 tracks) it's a little jolting to me. And I don't like track 13 at all, which is not sung by the group but by the grandsons of the group's founder. Otherwise, I can hardly find fault with this one. A 9.
Mark Z