Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…inyo. Here, they put down their track. Not at all phased by the use of headphones and mics, they take everything in there stride, performing a number of takes as the song develops. We start by giving them a simple click to follow the beat but quickly realised that their tempos are far more subtle than this. Francis comes back to set the rhythm with their natural clapping and it suddenly all came together again. Once we have the female vocals recor…
News from the Batwa in Kisoro News
…s We are happy to see ourselves and our friends Gasoda holding the pot its real. Gasoda looks exactly the way he always appears The Batwa who went to Nairobi were happy to see themselves in photos once again. Thanks to UOBDU and Singing Wells for sending this Album to us See how we were dressed it is exactly the one I was addressed. In the Camera you can see everything, One was showing another one and said, See this one, you can not know that he i…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…groups were very large, but because of budgets we could only bring a small number. We had good production but we couldn’t get the whole band in their element . Gargar was an example. Huge women’s group with lots of culture things – women’s rights … we could only work with four. We realised it would be better to take the studio to them. We would get a better view and get a more authentic sound. Then Abubilla Music contacted Tabu for a project and w…
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…othing materialised and he went back to Mirogi to live with his aunt. Nick really loves music – his favourite was a reggae group called Lucky Dube and their song ‘Crazy World’. He first thought of writing and recording his own music but ultimately decided that he loved the world of video, photography and computer animation. He first heard of Ketebul Music in 2008 when they were working on their compilation Retracing the Benga Rhythm. Ketebul were…
Why “Singing Wells”? News
…hen Jimmy witnessed an extraordinary sight while travelling in Kenya – the real-life singing wells of the Samburu tribes people. The singing wells of the Samburu During the dry season, Samburu herdsmen (and boys) draw much needed water for their cattle from deep wells which they have dug in the parched river bed. As they pull water from these wells they begin to sing, a different song eminating from each well. The animals appear from the bush,…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…o 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, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Willie Bembe News
…ompound with old hats and set up the equipment. We get to see Andy in he’s real professional self. We learn a lot from him since now we can see how it is done in real time. The group is amazing. The father and son are very talented. DAY 3 I start to realize that most of the groups we are recording have members who are very old which means that they have been storing this music for a very long time. All this then translates to the project being ver…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…mpromising on sound quality. Mzinga were accompanied by a small wooden xylophone, the marimba. Mzinga After four captivating numbers from Mzinga, we quickly pulled down the set and set off for our second location. The drive would take us to Mombasa,where we would end up in the most interesting set of all so far. Junda. We first drove in to what seemed to be a very busy township with a very steep and treacherous gravel road to drive on. Everyone…