"We had a gap between shows and decided to go somewhere quiet to flesh out some of the songs from the previous months, when we were working back and forth online”, says Tiago Correia-Paulo. “We hired a small cottage in a rural part of The Netherlands and set up a small recording studio. It smelled so much like cow manure that we had to keep the windows closed! The main acoustic guitar was the first thing we wrote and recorded during those sessions. Maybe influenced by our new surroundings it became a bit of a tangent to the more synth/keyboard driven sound we had been insisting on. So organically “Ndikhale” became the most earthy song of this new album. Short and simple, but still with a punch that could match everything else we were plotting".
Sometimes heartache can be terrifyingly moving, and in this case it inspired “Ndikhale”. In the wake of a call that left him feeling let down, dismissed and unfairly treated, he turned to songwriting to mark the moment and make the pain evident. “I wanted to go into a hole.That’s what the line “ngaske ndikhale ndigaze ndiyeke” (“I wish I could cry and never ever stop”) surfaces”, says Bongeziwe Mabandla. “I held on to that line for a few days while trying to find chords that would match my sorrow. What was interesting though that it was not a basic sad song. I was angry about everything that was happening to me and that’s how the fast pace of the song came about. I then worked on the verses of the song trying to put into words, why I was angry and I wrote about how I had been a fool in love and believed in empty promises and that I had been mislead into waiting for something that would make me feel unworthy. I love this song because it was written in the moment with that raw emotion still bare”.
Live-show: 3 juni - Bitterzoet – Amsterdam
De Zuid-Afrikaanse zanger/songschrijver Bongeziwe Mabandla is de laatste jaren ook flink buiten zijn thuisland aan de weg aan het timmeren. Voor zijn derde album “Iimini” (2020) kreeg hij vele handen op elkaar en ook zijn vele (Benelux/Europese) live-shows werden zeer goed bezocht en enthousiast ontvangen. Met zijn nieuwe album “AmaXesha” toont hij aan dat hij inderdaad is uitgegroeid tot het nieuwe gezicht van de Afro-folk; hij brengt originele, moderne, spirituele, dansbare, melancholische doch veelal vrolijke klanken, met verwijzingen naar Afrikaanse artiesten als Jabu Khanyile, Bongo Maffin, Miriam Makeba, Simphiwe Dana, Thandiswa Mazwai, Salif Keita en Busi Mhlongo, maar ook met (Westerse) invloeden van o.a. Tracy Chapman, Damon Albarn, Lauryn Hill, Bon Iver, Geoffrey Gurrumul, Sinkane en Michael Kiwanuka.
Op “AmaXesha” werkt Mabandla weer samen met zijn kompaan/producer/multi-muzikant Tiago Correia-Paulo (oorspronkelijk uit Mozambique), die vooral het meer moderne en electronische muzikale pallet voor zijn rekening neemt. Ingetogen, gospel-achtige en traditionele folk (met teksten in zijn prachtige Xhosa taal) blijft de basis, maar door dit in een breder modern muzikaal spectrum te brengen (met drum loops en synthesizers), wordt de karakteristieke ‘modern world music‘ sound van Bongeziwe Mabandla, met zijn wendbare, sensuele, meditatieve en zoete stem, een mix van ‘funky folk, uplifting gospel, sweet soul, smooth jazz & atmospheric urban beats’!
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten