Mashabe Band
Mandela
Boomkat Product Review:
Utterly spellbinding Kalindula spirits from The Mashabe Band on their 1987 dedication to Nelson Mandela, full of deliciously psychedelic, head-smooching harmonies and effortlessly complex rhythms.
Hailing from the same Zambia Music Label behind WITCH’s incredible Zamrock gems, Mashabe Band were the label’s leading proponents of Kalindula, a roots sound that, in their hands, became electrified during the Zamrock years to a uniquely lissom yet scintillating sound. In keeping with Kalindula’s ceremonial tribal origins and use of homespun guitars, traditional double bass and drums, the band performed in trad dress and body paint and sang about topical issues, here most passionately about ‘Mandela’, who was then a political prisoner and emblem of struggles against Apartheid and colonial dings. But it’s their use of amplified, plugged-in strings that really piques our interest here, articulating time honoured feels thru relatively new technology in combinations that really light up our heads with their mesh of interlocking harmonies, ululating vox and needlepoint grooves.
To be fair, by 1987 producers in the region were already making plenty headway with machines, but Mashabe Band’s music feels to follow its own line of popular music that feels at once vintage, immediate, and futuristic. Technically we have no idea what they’re doing, but we cannot deny they’re doing very strange and wonderful things with their tunings and our heads from the jungle of ‘Kanshi Ubupina Lisambi’ thru the Konrad Sprenger or Oren Ambarchi-like tang of ‘Impalume Shaya’, to the brilliantly heady tone of ‘Nenze Kuti Ndiwe Mama’, and almost NYC No wave-like top-line tintinnabulation of ‘Ba Music Parlour’, a dedication to their brilliant label home.
Life affirming stuff and a perfect primer on Kalindula music, we’re sure many will agree.
TIP!
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Boomkat Product Review:
Utterly spellbinding Kalindula spirits from The Mashabe Band on their 1987 dedication to Nelson Mandela, full of deliciously psychedelic, head-smooching harmonies and effortlessly complex rhythms.
Hailing from the same Zambia Music Label behind WITCH’s incredible Zamrock gems, Mashabe Band were the label’s leading proponents of Kalindula, a roots sound that, in their hands, became electrified during the Zamrock years to a uniquely lissom yet scintillating sound. In keeping with Kalindula’s ceremonial tribal origins and use of homespun guitars, traditional double bass and drums, the band performed in trad dress and body paint and sang about topical issues, here most passionately about ‘Mandela’, who was then a political prisoner and emblem of struggles against Apartheid and colonial dings. But it’s their use of amplified, plugged-in strings that really piques our interest here, articulating time honoured feels thru relatively new technology in combinations that really light up our heads with their mesh of interlocking harmonies, ululating vox and needlepoint grooves.
To be fair, by 1987 producers in the region were already making plenty headway with machines, but Mashabe Band’s music feels to follow its own line of popular music that feels at once vintage, immediate, and futuristic. Technically we have no idea what they’re doing, but we cannot deny they’re doing very strange and wonderful things with their tunings and our heads from the jungle of ‘Kanshi Ubupina Lisambi’ thru the Konrad Sprenger or Oren Ambarchi-like tang of ‘Impalume Shaya’, to the brilliantly heady tone of ‘Nenze Kuti Ndiwe Mama’, and almost NYC No wave-like top-line tintinnabulation of ‘Ba Music Parlour’, a dedication to their brilliant label home.
Life affirming stuff and a perfect primer on Kalindula music, we’re sure many will agree.
TIP!
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