Monoswezi's third album on Riverboat Records, following the critically acclaimed 'The Village' and 'Monoswezi Yanga'. An album which explores new musical territory by including the Indian harmonium, Malian ngoni and African-America banjo.
African-Nordic jazz alchemists Monoswezi explore new sonic worlds on 'A Je', which features the compositions of bandleader Hallvard Godal with a fresh hosting of new musical collaborators. Expanding their sound even further afield, Monoswezi's minimalist global groove is chic as ever and well ahead of the curve.
African music remains central to Monoswezi's inspiration. Their compositional approach draws on Hope Masike's Zimbabwean and Calu Tsemane's Mozambican musical heritage alongside the rest of the band's Nordic jazz tilt. In conversation Hallvard remarks on his earliest encounters with the music of Mozambique: "the music felt like a wheel, spinning, without beginning or end". Opening track "Loko U Muka" really catches this sentiment with rippling cyclical mbira and banjo lines atop interlocking bass line and Calu's vocal.
All of the tracks here feature Norwegian jazz improviser Kim Johannesen's banjo and were written with the instrument's idiosyncratic sound and flailing playing style in mind. The banjo's crystalline cut and dry sound alongside the ngoni's more dampened deep plucked punctuations contrast well. Though different the two instrument's are historically linked: the ngoni, alongside other West African lutes, was transported to America and the Caribbean during the dreaded slave trade, manifesting in Creole culture and influencing the emergence of the modern five-string banjo.
