Afro Celt Sound System

A fusion blending African and Celtic roots with electronic dance rhythms propelled Afro Celt Sound System to worldwide recognition toward the end of the 1990s. British musician and producer Simon Emmerson led the fluid ensemble, which achieved prominence through multiple releases on Real World Records such as 1999’s Volume 2: Release and 2005’s Volume 5: Anatomic. After an extended pause, the collective resumed live performances in 2010, yet a conflict over naming rights soon divided it into rival camps. Emmerson asserted principal control of ACSS in 2016 and issued the return recording The Source, with Flight following in 2018.

Drawn in 1995 to the notion of uniting those contrasting heritages with modern electronic textures, Emmerson assembled several musicians from Afro-pop star Baaba Maal’s circle—fresh from a prior collaboration—and matched them with leading Irish folk instrumentalists. A week of intensive improvisation at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios generated the distinctive, energetic hybrid that underpinned the ensemble’s debut, Volume 1: Sound Magic. Issued by Real World Records in September 1996, the album showcased kora player Kaouding Cissoko, flute and mandolin player Ronan Browne, Uilleann piper Davy Spillane, percussionists Massamba Diop and James McNally, vocalists Iarla Ó Lionáird and Ayub Ogoda, keyboardists Jo Bruce and Martin Russell, plus additional contributors, while Emmerson oversaw production and contributed guitar. In the ensuing years ACSS became a fixture on the world-music circuit, appearing at festivals, raves, and clubs. Immediately before work began on the second album, keyboardist Jo Bruce succumbed to an asthma attack. Persisting, a central group comprising Emmerson, McNally, Ó Lionáird, Russell, Celtic harpist Myrdhin, percussionist Moussa Sissokho, and vocalist/kora player N’Faly Kouyate completed 1999’s Volume 2: Release, which included a notable guest vocal from Sinéad O’Connor and earned a Grammy nomination.

Volume 3: Further in Time, released in 2001, tilted more decisively toward the African side of the equation and enlisted both Robert Plant and Peter Gabriel, the latter appearing on the single “When You’re Falling,” which gained substantial U.S. radio exposure. After a brief rebranding as Afro Celts for 2003’s Seed, the group restored the original name for the 2004 remix collection Pod and the subsequent studio set Volume 5: Anatomic in 2005. With the Anatomic tour concluding in 2007, ACSS entered hiatus as its core members pursued separate endeavors, among them Emmerson and British-Indian percussionist Johnny Kalsi’s multicultural venture The Imagined Village. They reconvened in 2010 for festival appearances supporting the Real World anthology Capture: 1995–2010 and continued sporadic joint shows until 2015, when internal disagreement split the band into competing factions each seeking rights to the ACSS moniker.

In 2016 the matter was resolved such that Emmerson, Kalsi, and Kouyate retained the Afro Celt Sound System designation while Russell and McNally launched a separate project. That year also saw the release of The Source, the first album under the revised lineup and a commemoration of the band’s twentieth anniversary. They followed with Flight in 2018, again centered on the core trio and augmented by the customary array of guests, among them highland piper Griogair, fiddler Ewen Henderson, and the African Gospel Singers. Simon Emmerson died on March 13, 2023, one day after marking his sixty-seventh birthday.