Apr 18/05
Chamber Shona
We have a guest post today by Benn loxo listener, Dominique.
“Kevin Volans is a South-African composer that studied and worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen in the 70′s. In 1986 he started working with the Kronos Quartet, with whom he recorded the chartbusters “White Man Sleeps” and “Pieces of Africa”, well, sort of… The track presented here was composed in 1980 and somehow ended up on the ‘unpublished work’ list. It was written for 2 specially tuned harpsichords and rattles, and is very much in debt to Shona Mbira music. I had never heard harpsichord sound this groovy!”
Thanks for the music, Dominique. Great stuff. You can buy the album here.
Tags: mbira, shona
I like this instrument , it s remind me a little Kora ( senegalese instrument).
Anyway Thanx for posting all this good songs.
Peace
Very nice and intriguing piece of work! I just had rediscovered Kevin Volans’ White man sleeps by Kronos Quartet in my own collection. Also a stunning piece, but the way Volans keeps these harpsichords humming is truly mind boggling!
It is posts like these wich keep this weblog high in my personal list of favs (and it gets my iTunes pretty much filled too!)
thanx a lot, and by way of a listener’s request: delight us with rare and obscure gems from Mali! Any Ramata Diakité, Adja Soumano or Kasse Mady Diabaté I totally missed?
What a terrific song! I’m so glad you started this weblog. It’s been just what I needed to start learning about African music. I’m often amazed by the music you highlight.
For me this track sounds really similar to “Ndanzwa Ngoma Kurira” by Thomas Mapfumo. It’s really funny to hear it like this. If anybody could confirm or may be it’s just my imagination…