Introducing Nyati Mayi & the Astral Synth Transmitters

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 182, November 2022.

Nyati Mayi is a singer and lulanga (trough zither) player with roots in DR Congo. His band the Astral Synth Transmitters is actually just one man – DJ soFa, aka Christophe Hammes, a producer, synthesist and crate-digger. They’re both members of the Brussels music scene, but their musical adventure together started out of the blue: “Nyati always sends spontaneous recordings of himself to his friends over text messages,” says Hammes. “During lockdown one morning, I turned on my phone and the recording he’d sent did me a lot of good. I walked directly from my bed to the studio next door, cut up the stuff and added synths and rhythm and sent it back. Three days later he came to my place and we started jamming.”

That was the start of a period of intense, unplanned collaboration. A spark of inspiration would become a loop over which Mayi improvised melodies and rhythms; the next day Hammes added his own synth ideas before remixing the lot into a cohesive whole – and then it’s onto the next song. “I'm very impatient, I never re-record or change much from what has been recorded. It's all about the magic of the moment.” Those 2020 sessions eventually crystallised into a debut album, Lulanga Tales, released in September 2022.

Although the duo have access to vast soundworlds of acoustic and electronic timbres, their music is pensive, even sparse. The signature twang and thrum of the lulanga is layered with complementary synth sounds and simple percussion, but the pulse is rarely defined with a strong beat. Mayi’s often wordless vocals are confident but gentle, teasing jazzy lines through the dubwise earthiness. The listener is given time and space to pause and ponder; it is, in a word, fascinating.

The music’s Congolese roots ring clear throughout, embodied in the lulanga. Although Mayi started off in the hip-hop scene, everything changed during a visit to his ancestral village of Nyangezi. “Twelve years ago when I visited my family there for the first time, I was talking about this instrument because I knew that my grandmother and grand-uncle played it,” he recalls. “20 minutes later, a guy from the village brought me the lulanga and just gave it to me. It was a new instrument to explore in my own way. For sure I didn’t play in the traditional Congo way, but with time, this lulanga has given me the opportunity to explore more and more.”

Mayi’s explorations have continued with his work with Hammes. They’re both musicians that create their own identities, and now they are discovering new styles together. For Hammes, it’s a source of admiration: “Nyati has a unique style that even transcends music. I believe that for certain people, not being part of the system helps to develop a stronger personal style; in my opinion a personal style is the highest achievement in music.” Remix-collabs between African tradi-modern and European electronic music are nothing particularly new, but Nyati Mayi and the Astral Synth Transmitters see and do things differently. With their in-the-moment process of improvised creation, their music leaves a lot to think about. Impressive work when there’s only two of them.


Photo: Nyati Mayi and his lulanga.