The new album from London’s Ibibio Sound Machine is titled Pull the Rope. The band blends styles from Nigeria and West Africa with jazz, rock, EDM, funk and R&B. This time out, the band leaned more heavily into studio effects to expand their sound. “We’ve definitely moved into more electronic territory,” said Max Grunhard, the band’s musical director and sax player.  Ibibio started out playing an acoustic combination of sounds from Europe, Nigeria and West Africa. The group was born when the band’s lead singer, Eno Williams, met Grunhard at a recording session. They hit it off, and she began telling him folk tales from the Ibibio people she grew up with and sang him some traditional songs. “The Ibibio language has a musical quality to it,” Williams said. “The guys in the band always comment on it, especially on the rhythmic sound of the lyrics. People seem to find they have an interesting poetic flow to them. Max liked the flow as well. He thought we should write some songs and see where it led.”   Grunhard and Williams began composing and went looking for other players to help them flesh out the sounds they were imagining. They enlisted Kari Bannerman, a guitar player from Ghana who loved Ghanaian “Highlife” music; Anselmo Neto, a percussionist from Brazil; synth-player and trombonist Tony Hayden; and other musicians from London’s diverse musical scene.   The band produced their first three albums, the eponymous Ibibio Sound Machine (2014), Uyai (2017) and Doko Mein (2019), on their own, staying close to the acoustic roots of the African sounds they loved. As they built a larger audience they added more studio-generated effects to the arrangements.  They co-produced 2022’s Electricity with the Hot Chip band and enlisted Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, M.I.A.) for Pull The Rope. “We’re constantly looking for ways to balance the traditional sounds I grew up with and the modern rhythms of London,” Williams said. Grunhard agreed: “It’s all part of exploring music. Ross had a great approach to drums and mixing, so it was a good experience working with him. The essence of our music is still the same, but production-wise it’s more stripped, edgy and angularly presented.” Previous songs were written with the whole band jamming, while Williams improvised lyrics and melody lines. This time Williams, Grunhard and Orton composed and recorded the songs, layering up tracks during an intense two-week period. “Other band members were always popping in and out of the studio while we were working on stuff, adding their ideas,” Grunhard said. The arrangements on Pull The Rope are as eclectic as expected. “Let My Yes Be Yes” moves along on a minimal rhythm track that combines syncopated hip-hop, R&B and funk beats. Williams’ lead vocals are layered up into a call-and-response chant that darts in and out of the rhythm, repeating the refrain: “Let my yes be yes and my no be no.” Williams offers up a prayer for world peace and harmony on “Mama Say.” A propulsive funk rhythm backs Williams as she sings the hook, then shifts into an electropop wave of synthesizers that suggests an ’80s dance club hit. Three minutes in, it stops abruptly, then restarts with a simple, driving backbeat supporting Williams as she delivers an incantation in Ibibio, with dub effects that send her voice echoing through the mix with an angelic quality. The title track opens with group member PK Ambrose laying down a propulsive bassline over a funky drum loop while the band sings: “Let’s pull the rope!” Williams delivers a counter melody in Ibibio, while the horn section adds accents over some DJ scratching and a whistling synth line that brings an underlying tension to the band’s chanting. “The song represents the tension between disparate groups we’ve been immersed in over the past few years, whether it be political, economic, racial or gender based,” Grunhard said. “The overall sentiment of the track is, ‘Let’s embrace that tension and come together, rather than manifesting it in negative ways.’” Ibibio Sound Machine will play Friday, Oct. 4, at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Admission is free.