#mbira

[mwana-wevhu]

[dustedmagazine]

Third Coast Percussion — Standard Stoppages (Cedille)

Nominated for two Grammys, Third Coast Percussion’s recording Standard Stoppages was part of the group’s twentieth anniversary celebrations. The group has long advocated for contemporary classical music, commissioning projects that have done a great deal to expand the repertoire for percussion ensembles. Standard Stoppages consists entirely of new works made by collaborators old and new to TCP.

Jlin is best known for her footwork output, but recently she has been working with artists in other genres. Please Be Still is a brief, charming work that translates footwork into percussion ensemble music, moving electronica signatures into the realm of acoustic instruments.

Tigran Hamasayan fully embraces mallet instruments in his Sonata for Percussion, with patterning of folk melodies creating vibrant shimmering timbres. Cast in three movements, “Memories From Childhood,” “Hymn,” and “23 for TCP,” the sonata was clearly tailor made for the group, and their assured performance underscores this spirit of collaboration.

Zakir Hussain wrote Murmurs in Time, his only piece for classical percussion ensemble, for TCP. Tabla playing is featured prominently on the recording. Hussain recently passed away, and the work honors his legacy as a virtuoso performer and creative artist and gives the listener a poignant glimpse at what could have been a more extended, fruitful collaboration with TCP.

Jessie Montgomery’s Study No. 1 uses a diverse range of instruments, successively foregrounding different subsections. There is a sense of inquisitiveness in this heterogenous deployment. Montgomery focuses more on melodic and harmonic details than textural variety in In Color Suite.

Musekiwa Chingodza’s buoyant singing voice is featured on his piece Dzoka Kumba Referencing Zimbabwean traditional music, Chingodza’s mbira (thumb piano) playing is underlaid with syncopated polyrhythms from a drum set, mallets, and metallophone instruments. It is a stirring close to a multifaceted, eminently satisfying recording.

Christian Carey

[supersupersounds]

Jacob Mafuleni & Vee Mukarati - Zvichapera

Beautiful rework of this mbira classic, plus the Chiwoniso original is included too. Magical.

[dani-xis]

passei óleo, afinei e toquei com uma mão só enquanto filmava.

[thedaysofdisorder]

Forward Kwenda plays Tadzungaira

The Shona song to end all suffering played by Gwenyambira Forward Kwenda in 2011 on his bass Nemakonde Mbira.

[nofatclips]

Mbira by Montalban Quintet

[hontokana]

Oswell Mupunga - Diaspora Region: Zimbabwe / Style: Chimurenga, Mbira / Year: 2013 LOVED

[burlveneer-music]

Midori Takada - Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter - longform interpretation of the traditional Shona "Nhemamusasa"

WRWTFWW Records and MEG Museum (Geneva) are honored to present the first new solo album by renowned Japanese percussionist Midori Takada (Through The Looking Glass) in 23 years, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter, available on vinyl LP, housed in a 350gsm sleeve, with OBI, and liner notes, as well as on digipack CD. Recorded in a live setting and played with instruments conserved in the collections of the MEG Museum, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter is Midori Takada’s very own rendition of "Nhemamusasa", a traditional work emblematic of the musical repertoire for mbira of the Shona of Zimbabwe, well known worldwide, thanks notably to its version by Paul F. Berliner included on the famed 1973 album The Soul of Mbira. The choice of this title by Midori Takada evokes the links between traditional African and contemporary music which are the foundation of this work, and it also translates the resolutely multicultural vision of the artist. Midori Takada explains: "African music is remarkable for its polyrhythms. Not only are there simultaneously several rhythmic motifs, sometimes as many as ten, but furthermore it may be that the part played by each musician has its own starting point and its own pace, all combining to form a cycle. All the cycles progress at the same time according to a single metrical structure which functions as a reference point, but which is not played by any one person from beginning to end. The structure emerges out of the multi-level parts, all different. With the Shona, the musical system is based on the polymelody: one performs simultaneously several melodic lines which are superimposed, each having its own rhythmic organization. It is truly captivating. In Western classical music, one four-beat rhythm induces some precise temporal framework and regular reference points, which come on the strong beats 1 and 3. But in the logic of the Shona musical system, and in other African music, the melody can begin in the very middle of the cycle and be continued up to some other place in an autonomous manner, as if it had its own personality. It’s very rich." The album comes with in-depth liner notes that include an interview with Midori Takada, a point of view by Zimbabwean scholar, musician and activist Forward Mazuruse, and background information on the project by Isabel Garcia Gomez and Madeleine Leclair from MEG Museum. The sleeve features an artwork by celebrated Zimbabwean painter Portia Zvavahera. Part of the budget for the album was donated to Forward Mazuruse’s Music For Development Foundation whose aim is to identify, nurture, and record young but underprivileged musicians in Zimbabwe.