Abubilla Music release fourth album News
…there’s a launch party on 2nd October in Richmond when The Saturday Morning Canasta Club will play tracks to a (hopefully) admiring audience – more news about that to follow. Click on the cover for a sneak preview – the track ‘Breathe’ performed by the Singing Wells Project’s very own Andy Patterson……. Importantly, the album also includes the global remix of an original Abubilla track ’71 Hours to Monday’ which has been rele…
AMF News Up-Date News
…There’s some exciting developments happening with all our projects and partners. Take a look at our news update here: …
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…the recording sessions themselves, which involves 2 sound enginers, 2 video engineers, 1 local logistics expert, 2 trainees to learn mobile recording and 2 artists to develop the influences sessions and c) to upgrade archiving hardware and software and to fully training the Singing Wells team (and future trainees) in archiving. We are seeking funds from NGO’s, Corporate and Individual Sponsors and will work with sponsors to develop Phase Three in…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…urkana Cultural Festival to collect new audio and visual material for the Singing Wells project. The Abubilla Music Foundation (AMF) was pleased to be able to provide the funds to allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF,…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Willie Bembe News
WILLIE’S EXPIRIENCE WITH THE SINGING WELLS PROJECT DAY 1 The guys form Abubilla have just flown in and a small party is being held for them at Sippers Restaurant in Hurllingham with performances from among others Samba Mapangala, Winyo and Ayub Ogada. I say hi to Andy who is at the control desk recording the event with the new equipment. I meet Jimmy a bit later when the event is over. Gosh he’s tall….and very hands on since he was helping take d…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…xcept perhaps where some extra personnel may be required in future. The training aspect on this field trip was excellent. I don’t think it was the allure of a couple of cold beers at the end of each day that made the boys bring forth their best. Another beautiful occurrence at this stage of the project is that the Ketebul team laid its hands on new equipment that they were eager to be exposed to. I’ll take a back seat here (I come from the days of…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
In this blog, Steve Kivutia, Project Manager for Singing Wells, gives us his reflections of the March Pilot. We’ve added pictures and more importantly sound samples to his reviews, so well worth a listen! We are back in Nairobi after a week in the field recording material for the pilot phase of the Singing Wells project. This was a culmination of months of planning and exchange of email correspondence between Abubilla Music and Ketebul Music. D…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…t of storms, with concerns about theft, etc… Test the Team: We would be training the Ketebul team on the new equipment and we would be seeing how we all did in the field in terms of logistics and audio and video capture. Test the Concept: Singing Wells is about the archiving of traditional East African music and ensuring that these traditions are kept alive in contemporary music. We needed to see if this was a worthwhile concept. 2. And, how did y…
£25K donation from Abubilla Music Foundation News
…lla Music Foundation of £25,000 has been allocated by the trustees to the Singing Wells project. This has meant that all expenditure on the development of the Ketebul Music website has been covered and we are now able to go ahead with the purchase of the all mobile recording equipment which will be needed for the village recording sessions. Our resident technical expert and sound engineer, Andy Patterson, has sourced everything we need and will be…
Ketebul Music website launched News
Great news to report today. Initial funds to the Singing Wells project have been used to complete our first objective and we are delighted to report on the launch of the new Ketebul Music website. When Abubilla Music and Ketebul Music first came together we decided the most pressing need was for a dynamic website which would show the work of the Ketebul artists in their full glory and we think we’ve succeeded in our goal. Take a good look around…
SWP Launch Day News
Today is launch day – the day we go live with the brand new Singing Wells website. And it’s a very exciting prospect, as the project starts in earnest from here. It’s particularly appropriate that we should launch today, as this week Kenya celebrates the 47th anniversary of independence, which was granted on 12th December 1963. And yesterday, I was very honoured to be a guest at a reception for Kenya National Day hosted by the High Commissioner i…