Kutiman comes back to his trip to Tanzania, adding a saxophone, trumpet, trombone – and lots of psychedelia.
Six years ago, Israeli music explorer and producer Ophir Kutiel also known as Kutiman visited Tanzania to collaborate with Wachaga people – living in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro – and to meet local artists.
He left the place with a bag full of recordings, which included “school children from the city of Arusha playing drums or the dancers who wore bells to add a percussive element to the movement, like the metal plate in a tap dancer’s shoe.”
Kutiman’s latest full-length album “Wachaga“, fourth in his career, sees him coming to those sounds he collected back in 2014. He mixed them with brass instruments, inviting a saxophonist, a trumpeter and a trombonist to the studio, with spiritual jazz in his mind (and his player) throghout the recordings.
The nine tracks that resulted from this experiment make a fascinating mix of (afro) jazz, ethno music and psychedelia, or maybe it’s a soundtrack for a yet non-existent apocalypse movie taking place in Africa.
Stream “Wachaga” LP on Bandcamp and Spotify.
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