24-24 Things Pt. 2

Ancient Thumb Pianos, Imaginary Bedroom Keyboards, Acknowledged Grace, Conscious Balance, Endlessness, and Other Unusual Objects

Part 2

Ekuka Morris Sirikiti - Te​-​Kwaro Alango​-​Ekuka

When the incredible, ever-surprising Kampala-based label Nyege Nyege Tapes first started out, it was imperative that one of their first releases focused on the music of Ekuka Morris Sirikiti. Since the 1970s, the legendary Langi griot had been playing at bustling markets and street fairs, familiar to all who passed by. His spellbinding lukeme (a Ugandan iteration of the kalimba or thumb piano) had never properly been recorded, only captured on radio broadcasts over the decades. Those tapes didn’t survive, but some truly diligent detective work turned up some of those recordings in the form of home taping made off the radio. It was released in 2018 as the label’s second ever release, Ekuka. It’s described as “thrillingly squashed, thistly and awash with ferric particles, and are intended to be received in the same way they were originally: without gloss or affectation; as direct fire to ears.” It’s blistering to be sure.

When Sirikiti finally heard those recordings, it brought back a flood of memories at those old lost songs and friends again. Te​-​Kwaro Alango​-​Ekuka marks the first time he ever entered an actual studio. I have no idea if the photograph on the cover captures such an occasion, but there’s something visceral in the yellowed linoleum, the blue plastic patio chairs, the house slippers, with Sirikiti keeping his yellow rain slick on as he performed. Hearing his voice double-tracked and his lukeme in exquisite detail made for one of the most fascinating listens this year: buzzing, jangling, clanging, utterly hypnotizing. I do wish the package had included translations of the lyrics though. Each song is a story of life and tribulations in his community: the scandal of romancing a brother’s wife, local witch doctors, petty theft, tales of medicine men, etc. Alice Munro could never.

Nala Sinepho - Endlessness
I liked but didn’t quite fall in love with Nala Sinepho’s critically-acclaimed debut, Space 1.8, but that may have more to do with me bristling at the coinage “ambient jazz” (looking at you, Sherburne). But I couldn’t pass up the chance to see her perform live. Think back to this summer’s sweltering live US debut of the harpist/ synthesist/ composer at St. Ann’s Church, how she surfed on sinewaves with her band, no wild flights or jags, everything steadfast. I was reminded of Terry Riley’s early oscillations, if he had a pocket drummer keeping everything tightly coiled. Somewhere in the back of the church, there was an AC exhaling every minute or so, a steady fluttering of fans in the pews, adding another rhythmic matrix to the proceedings. In person, it felt at times too tidy, in dire need of a Pharoah Sanders to add cosmic flares like he did on “Journey in Satchidananda,” the roadmap for such 21st century explorations. But on Endlessness, that tidiness, that meticulousness towards matrices makes the album an astonishing feat. The band can swell up to eight players, but Sinepho makes it all move as one gesture, one exhalation.

Amaro Freitas - Y’Y
Apocryphal or no, I can’t get this image of Recife-born pianist Amaro Freitas out of my head, conceptualizing gigs in his bedroom as his fingers strike the air and he imagines the resultant sound. Y’Y both summons some international heaters: Shabaka Hutchings, Brandee Younger, Jeff Parker, Hamid Drake, and Cuban bassist Aniel Someillan while turning his attention back to the indigenous roots of his homeland, to concepts of the land and culture that predate Portuguese colonization.

Some moments evoke the small percussion moves of Art Ensemble of Chicago or Marion Brown’s Afternoon of a Georgian Faun, or else the smoother moves of his predecessors like Hermeto Pascoal and Egberto Gismonti (the latter’s free-flowing Dança Das Cabeças –a suite-like improv with percussion master and fellow Recife native Naná Vasconcelos– immediately springs to mind). But Y’Y confidently moves in the present, a stunning amalgam of spiritual jazz, Brazilian fusion, and Amazonian ritual.