Making Tracks 2024 - Grand Junction, Paddington, London

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 203, December 2024.



Making Tracks 2024
Grand Junction, Paddington, London
3rd October 2024

Now on its fifth edition, Making Tracks is one of those not-to-be-missed occasions once autumn rolls around. Eight young artists, each from a different musical world, get together for two weeks of concerted collaboration, which continues to evolve across a two-week tour. This year featured participants from the UK, Syria/Germany, Denmark, Kenya, East Turkestan and Finland (see makingtracksmusic.org/fellows for the full list; they deserve more recognition than space allows here!).

For this tour’s penultimate concert at London’s Grand Junction, we were treated to two-and-a-half hours of unique collaborations interspersed with solo showcases from each musician. All eight remained on stage throughout, and it was always exciting to see who would stir to join in the next piece – will it be a medley of Newfoundland, Uyghur and Swedish songs? A composition for Arabic violin and tama (talking drum)? Hurdy-gurdy and Kenyan drums? It’s impressive just how accomplished these musical relationships were after such a short – albeit intense – gestation. Interspecies connections were also emphasised this year, with nature embraced as an equal participant, from transcriptions of whalesong to electronically-wrangled biosignals of sea-kale. The high, intricately decorated Victorian church ceilings of Grand Junction afforded interesting reverberations, highlighting acoustic elements that would have been lost in a less cavernous venue – a lovely marriage of sound and space.

Making Tracks has hit upon a winning formula, for the creation of both beautiful music, and lasting artistic partnerships. In his opening speech, director Merlyn Driver referred to the concert as “nourishing music” – this really is the sort of project that can achieve meaningful new musical directions.


Photo: Making Tracks 2024 at Grand Junction, by Andrea Terzuoli. L-R: Nina Harries, Anna McLuckie, Shohret Nur, Christian Mohr Levisen, Kasiva Mutua, Ossi Raippalinna, Ayman Hlal (Helen Anahita Wilson is obscured behind Hlal).

Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno - KWEChE

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 173, December 2021.

Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno
KWEChE
Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno (43 mins)

The nyatiti is an eight-stringed plucked lyre of the Luo people in Kenya. Played in a fast and rhythmic way, the nyatiti can provide a danceable groove; in fact, it’s one of the ancestors of benga music. Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno approaches the nyatiti in a different way.

Hailing from Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya and now based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Otieno plays the nyatiti in a much more introspective way, creating considered and atmospheric moods. On KWEChE, he maintains the instrument’s distinctive timbre, with its subtle buzz on each string, but the music it leads deals with weighty topics based on the cultural differences and adaptations so noticeable within a diaspora community.

For an album based around the nyatiti and Otieno’s high-pitched song, the best moments come when we’re given something a bit different. The track ‘Oyao Tich’, for example, with its lightly Celtic folk fiddle, ‘Buok’ with its Indian bansuri (flute) or the closer ‘Andiwo’ with its more upbeat feel and fresh, airy guitar, all buck the trend and are standout tracks as a result.

It’s great to hear the nyatiti in focus and KWEChE has its moments, but with notable exceptions, it seems to hit the same beats fairly often.

Various Artists - Making Tracks: 2019 Live Tour

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 166, April 2021.

Various Artists
Making Tracks: 2019 Live Tour
Making Tracks (91 mins)

In rural Powys in early autumn 2019, Making Tracks gathered eight of the most exciting young roots musicians from across Europe and beyond for two weeks of exploration, expert mentorship and collaboration. The fruits of this residency were then showcased on a UK tour, which was recorded (and now, released) for posterity.

The sheer quality of musicianship on display is immense. All eight musicians give featured solo performances as well as showing off intercultural experiments developed during the residency, and there are no stand-outs because each artist brings something special. They excel in this all-acoustic setting, and their month of living and working together shines through in the ease of musical communication: pairings such as Kenyan nyatiti (lyre) and Hindustani santoor (zither) or Turkish kemençe (spike fiddle) and Estonian parmupill (jaw harp) feel as natural as they are unexpected. Neither are the performances hampered by the live setting, as the recordings and production are equally superb.

Making Tracks is all about promoting emerging artists and providing them with everything they need to break through. 2019’s fellows – Louise Bichan, Rapasa Otieno, Arsen Petrosyan, Katariin Raska, Luna Silva, Kaviraj Singh, Melisa Yildirim, Barbora Xu – all deserve wider attention. This album is a great place to start.

Obituary: Ayub Ogada (1956-2019)

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 146, April 2019.



A giant of Kenyan music has passed away. Ayub Ogada died on February 1 at his home in Kisumu, after an illness. He was a master of the nyatiti, an eight-stringed lyre of the Luo people, on which he accompanied his beautiful voice. Ogada, under his birth name Job Seda, had a massive impact on the Kenyan music scene through the bands he founded, Black Savage and the African Heritage Band, whose influences are still felt in the country today. International audiences will probably be most familiar with his 1993 album En Mana Kuoyo, released on Real World Records, containing a quiet, intimate version of his most well-known song, the haunting lullaby ‘Kothbiro’. He was first noticed by Real World busking on the London Underground, but went on to perform around the world and collaborate with artists such as Peter Gabriel, Geoffrey Oryema, Afro Celt Sound System, Susheela Raman and even Gary Barlow; most recently, his work was sampled by Kanye West. In his tribute to Ogada, Gabriel said: “In the early days of WOMAD and Real World Records, many people weren’t interested to listen to music from other cultures and whenever I was trying to convince them, I would play Ayub singing ‘Kothbiro’ and invariably win them round.”


Photo: Ayub Ogada, by Andrew Catlin.

Various Artists - Listen All Around: The Golden Age of Central and East African Music

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 140, August/September 2018.

Various Artists
Listen All Around: The Golden Age of Central and East African Music
Dust to Digital (2CD, 132 mins)

If it ain’t exquisite, it ain’t Dust to Digital. The record label is well-known for its high-quality compilations of remastered recordings, and Listen All Around is no exception.

This is a delightful collection of recordings made by archivist Hugh Tracey, exploring a range of popular music from modern day DR Congo, Kenya and Tanzania as it was in the 1950s.

Although Tracey didn’t exactly enjoy this type of music himself, his recordings are thankfully extensive. There’s tracks based on calypso, country, big band jazz, Cuban son, Ghanaian highlife, military bands and even French folk songs, all with more or less influence from traditional music of the various regions.

Each of the 47 tracks has an interesting story to tell, and there’s lots to arouse the curiosity, such as the massed kazoos of the Dar Es Salaam Jazz Band and ‘Chemirocha III,’ a song by Kipsigis girls in Kenya in honour of country legend Jimmie Rodgers. It’s useful, then, that the 84 pages of liner notes include detailed explanations of every track, as well as a fully-referenced essay about the music and culture of the time by the compiler, Professor Alex Perullo.

The wonderful variety of sounds and impressive depth of information make Listen All Around a great resource for world music fans and ethnomusicologists alike.

Orchestra Super Mazembe - Mazembe @ 45rpm, Vol. 1

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 93, July 2013.

Orchestra Super Mazembe
Mazembe @ 45rpm, Vol. 1
Sterns Music (77 mins)

Orchestra Super Mazembe may be one of the most influential bands in African music. They were one of the first exponents of the Latin-influenced Congolese rumba lingala (or soukous) to up sticks and move to Kenya, where their music evolved into what is now known as benga. This in turn crossed over to Zimbabwe, transforming into sungura and jit jive. You’d be hard pressed to find them in a record shop outside of the African continent, though.

Mazembe @ 45rpm, Vol. 1 remedies this by presenting pieces taken from 45rpm releases from the late ’70s – the most common way of disseminating music at the time. None of the tracks are shorter than six minutes long, each containing both A and B sides of the single, the two parts of the same song blended seamlessly.

The pieces reveal a wide range of moods, from the danciest grooves of ‘Okova’ to the more relaxing ‘Izabela’, but they all have the common soukous spices – interweaving high-pitched guitar melodies, effortlessly tight harmonies and an overall aural sunniness. Oddly enough, the compilation neglects what was perhaps the band’s biggest hit in Kenya, 1977’s ‘Kasongo’, but the tracks that are included are solid gold.

Another inclusion is a detailed 15-page booklet, with band biography and song explanations created with help from another soukous legend Samba Mapangala, who features on the album himself, taking vocal duties on the track ‘Mwana Mazembe’.

Although the sound reproduction can be a bit scratchy at times, this can be forgiven in lieu of the great music contained within. Bring on Volume 2!