This
playful assignment was the genesis of Matuto’s Africa Suite (EP) (Motema Music;
release date: November 4, 2014). About to embark on a five-week, five-country
African tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the five-member
Appalachia-gone-Afro-Brazilian band decided to create tributes and love letters
to the sounds they heard along the way, and the people who welcomed them. They
divvied up the task by country, at random, but the results sound anything but.
“It had
been our dream to tour in Africa for a long time, and we knew in advance that
it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We wanted to perform for African
audiences, but more importantly, we wanted to allow the people, music, and
culture to seep in, to live with us, and to change us,” explains Clay Ross,
Matuto singer and guitarist.
From
young voices lifted in a song of thanks in Mozambique to hot 70s-era Ivorian
beats, from palm wine music and village jams to beloved Cameroonian rhythms,
Matuto dived into a sea of African sounds. The resulting songs brought all they
experienced home, blending the band’s signature sway and charm into shimmering,
uplifting tracks.
“We
decided we wouldn’t be too strict about the geography of sound, but in the end,
there was just so much information, so many rhythms and sounds, that allowing
each individual to focus on one country worked out great,” Ross reflects.
“We’re happy with the diversity that it brought to the final work.” It’s a
diversity that mirrors the band’s adventures.
The
pieces that make up the Africa Suite range from the sweet (“Mozambique,” with
its moving chorus of “kanimambo,” “thank you” in Shangaan) to the mysterious
(the opening of “Cameroon,” with violinist Mazz Swift’s lyrical playing). Fans
of Afropop will catch the winks to Ghanaian highlife and to Ivorian popular
music (ziglibithy), but there are plenty of surprises for the African music
aficionado, too: “Senegal” bristles with gorgeous rock energy, while drawing on
regional styles the band encountered while performing for (and learning from)
musicians and listeners in Senegal’s rural south.
The
biggest source of inspiration: the people who welcomed the band. Bassist Mike
LaValle was moved by the young people they met in an arts center in Mozambique.
Accordionist Rob Curto caught the gentle, unedited joy of Accra’s music scene.
Ross pays tribute to the positive energy of the powerhouse Ivorian band, Zieti,
who hosted and jammed with Matuto.
With all
the fresh sounds and friendly receptions, there was ample food for thought and
music making. Then the pieces, composed immediately after returning to the US,
took on that certain Matuto shine, as passionate playing and clever
arrangements gave the diverse ideas a unified feel.
This
came, in part, from the band’s unusual instrumentation. “The violin and
accordion are not all that common in most African popular music and that led to
some creative orchestrations,” notes Ross. “Often we would use the violin and
accordion to emulate different rhythmic figures found in African guitar music.
Ultimately, like James Brown said, ‘All the instruments are drums.’ We just
happen to have an accordion drum in our band!”
They may
have had an unexpected sonic palette to play with, but their full-on tour
schedule left them no time at home to record. So they did the most logical
thing: They recorded impressions of one tour while out on another, tracking the
session at Catamount Recording Studios in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
In the
crucible of road life, they took pains to dig into and refine their approach to
the technically challenging material that informed the pieces. “There is a deep
complexity to the polyrhythmic interplay in the music we engaged with on our
journey,” Ross says. “In the Suite, there are a lot of musical layers. It was
challenging at times to strike the right balance or decide which instrument
should play which rhythmic building block. This is where the pieces became
truly collaborative efforts, with everyone weighing in to help make these
decisions.”
Collaboration
lies at the heart of The Africa Suite, and it hasn’t ended with the band’s exit
from the studio. The band got a chance to share their work with new friends
like Mozambique’s leading music and dance troupe, Wuchene, who danced along to
the grooves. Matuto hopes to bring the piece back to Africa, the root of its
inspiration, playing it for and with collaborators, and letting the piece grow
and evolve as they do.
“Mozambique”
(by bassist Mike LaValle): “After a short concert at an arts-centered school in
downtown Maputo, the class sang us a song expressing their gratitude from which
I took inspiration for my piece. A simple yet elegant melody using only the
word Kanimambo; the Shangaan word for ‘thank you.’”
“Ivory
Coast” (by guitarist Clay Ross): “This song was inspired by our collaboration
with our local hosts, Zieti, and the lyrics chronicle the people and events
from our stay there, especially the grisgris, the positive energy we got from
them.”
“Ghana”
(by accordionist Rob Curto): “My piece was inspired by a very light and
optimistic sense of life I experienced immediately upon arrival in Ghana. The
sound and emotion of the music I heard in Accra, especially high life and palm
wine music, and of the people I met there, were uplifting and also very gentle.
I wanted my piece to express that direct honest feeling, free from much irony
or tension.”
“Cameroon”
(by drummer Richie Barshay): “The medley captures Matuto’s diverse adventures
in Cameroon. From a chanted tribute to its capital city Yaounde, to an upbeat
rendition of the popular melody ‘Zaminamina,’ and a groove section dedicated to
one of the country’s unique rhythms, bikutsi.”
“Senegal”
(by violinist Mazz Swift): “I took my affinity for Rock, set to a specific
rhythmic motif we learned from a group of musicians in Ziguinchor, a village we
visited in the deep south of Senegal. The piece also utilizes a vocal call and
response, which imitates the traditional music of the Djiola people of the
Casamance region in Senegal, but is conceptually turned on its head: the voice
of a woman is calling and the men responding.”
The
Africa Suite follows up Matuto’s acclaimed sophomore album, The Devil and the
Diamond (Motema 2012) and their debut Matuto (Galileo MC 2011). It will be
available commercially in digital form only, though true fans can pick up a
physical CD at live shows and online at www.matutomusic.com, where various
merchandise is also available.
The
compelling artwork for The Africa Suite, was created by Ty Wilkins who recently
won a coveted Communication Arts Design award for his work on The Devil and The
Diamond.
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