Olombelo Ricky

Olombelo Ricky Randimbiarison is the most gifted and certainly popular singer in his native Madagascar, where he is known as 'Olombelona Ricky' ('Ricky, the human being') and the local press has reported the phenomenon of 'Rickymania'. Ricky is well-versed in traditional Malagasy music, but mainly he works with an electric band made up of the best musicians on the island, playing a mixture of vako-drazana folk and jazz they call vakojazzana. In 1995, Ricky met the Swiss band, Patent Ochsner, who were ultimately able to give him and his band the opportunity to record. The six Malagasy musicians flew to Switzerland, where they recorded sixty minutes of music. When Robert Trunz heard the tape, he noted the similarity of some of the sounds to Brazilian music and wondered if Airto Moreira might be interested in working with Ricky. Consequently, Ricky Randimbiarison came to Brownhill Farm during the summer of 1997 and worked on the tapes of his album with Airto Moreira, completely re-building the tracks with contributions from Suzan Hendricks, Mabi Thobejane and Diana Moreira, who were also staying at Brownhill. The resulting CD, Olombelona Ricky was released by M.E.L.T.2000