A selection of tracks recording for the Singing Wells Influences series – a fusion of contemporary and traditional music from East Africa.
Influences songs
This track features Jovah Nyiramajoro performing with Jesse Bukindu at Ketebul Music Studios. We discovered Jovah on the Singing Wells field trio to Uganda in November 2011. She is from the Mperwa Batwa community, a small settlement of families just outside Kisoro. Read our report from the trip here.
This next track is called Amahoro – a Batwa song from the Birara Dancers of Kisoro, accompanied here by Jesse Bukinda on guitar and Winyo on vocals. This track was recorded live at the Traveller’s Rest Hotel in Kisoro, Uganda.
This is a track from ‘Tiny Moses’ who is also a Batwa from the Micyingo community living near Kisoro. Tiny Moses plays a small, hand made guitar and here he performs with Winyo at the Ketebul Music studios. Read more here.
This is an Influences track performed on location in the field during our visit to Kenya in march 2012 to record the music of the Kajenjin tribes. One of the most exciting moments of the trip was discovering this extraordinary musician from Kapsokwony, Ben Kisinja. His music is typical of the Sabaot tribe and he plays the ‘burkandit’ – a guitar simliar to the nyatiti played by the Luo tribes. Here he performs with Eddie Grey, one East Africa’s leading Jazz guitarists.
This track is by the Otacho Young Stars who we first met in December 2011 during our field visit to Western Kenya to record Luo music. Experts on the traditional instruments the orutu and nyangile, we loved this group and invited them to record at the Ketebul Music studio a few months later. Here they are performing ‘Mr Manager’ accompanied by session musicians and also Winyo with backing vocals. (Click here for blog post)
During our field visit to Northern Uganda we travelled with Akello, a singer/songwriter originally from an Acholi village near Gulu and now living in Kampala. Here she is performing her own song ‘Amari’ accompanied by the wonderful Watmon Cultural Group. (Click here for blog post)
And here is Akello with another of her songs, this time accompanied by the Adungu Cultural Troupe who are based in Kampala (Click here for blog post)
