- artist:Takula
- featured artist:Takula
- release year:2018
- style(s):Contemporary
- country:Malawi
- formats:CD (Compact Disc)
- record posted by:XA Music - Exchange Art
- label:XA Music - Exchange Art
- buy this record
The album is based around reimagined and reinterpreted songs that are drawn from the archives of MBC, the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, who were the sole recording facility in the country for decades. MBC’s huge archive, comprises thousands of pieces of music, a rich heritage of old radio sessions and field recordings. The audio had been conserved on tapes and acetates but the modern incarnation of MBC did not have equipment with which to retrieve this vital oral and musical history. Up stepped veteran Norwegian DJ, broadcaster and all round musical aficionado Sigbjørn Nedland, who knew that the Norwegian State broadcaster NRK still had vintage tape machines that were gathering dust in places like the country’s largely superfluous Civil Defence radio station, originally built to broadcast to the nation if things went belly up during the early days of the Cold War. In a poetic coalition of their different reliquaries, one broadcaster’s antique equipment helped another to unlock timeless recordings that were to remain otherwise inaccessible, via an initiative from Sigbjørn that found a willing co-sponsor to the MBC in the form of the Norwegian Consulate in Blantyre.
As a purveyor of African music to a passionate Nordic audience, Sigbjørn would often find himself in contact with Malawian musicians keen to break into new territories. His introduction of four Malawian musicians and singers to Georg Buljo led to recording this album that would draw on the MBC’s newly uncovered archive. In a final plot twist, Georg and Sigbjørn approached Giles Perring, a UK musician with a reputation for his own fresh approach to creating roots music records, to mix and release the album on his newly established XA label.
So we have ‘Takula’ - songs of pain, renewal and freedom, that look first to the past and then speak to the future. Traditional Malawian harmonies, rhythms and sounds meld beautifully with an articulate and hooky set of pop sign posts that come straight from the North. The deluxe CD edition expands the sense of a band unlocking their history so as to grab and run with of their destiny by bringing you 6 pieces from the MBC archive, each of which can be directly related to a track on the new album.