Pop Music Reviews : Seamless Grooves From Zaire’s Etoiles

The guitar-driven soukous sound from Zaire is the most widely popular pop style in Africa, but in the United States it’s still largely unknown outside the confirmed African pop audience. The style certainly merits wider exposure if Les Quatre Etoiles’ sparkling hour-plus first set Friday at the Executive Club in the Crenshaw District was any indication.

The interwoven guitars of Syran M’benza and Bopol Mansiamina locked around looping bass lines to create seamless, precise grooves that kept the dance floor filled for most of the set--the first of the group’s two-night local debut. The sextet’s masterful command of dynamics--constant shifts in volume, a crackling drum cannonade here, a sudden round of vocal whoops there--kept the arrangements varied, and M’benza’s shimmering, echo-laden lead guitar was a constant delight.

The group (whose name translates as the Four Stars) sings mostly in French, but vocalists J. P. Ramazani and Wuta Mayi broke down any language barriers by pulling dancers on stage or wading onto the crowded dance floor themselves to direct their singing at individual audience members.