BaraBara.fm [v.3] - A Journey into the Sound of Kenya » _This and That

Matondoni Track Idea (Extract)

Agnieszka — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:12:30 +0000

This is a first try out based on the great recording we did in Matondoni, this small island just a stone´s throw away from Lamu.
http://www.barabara.fm/videoblog/music/Matondoni25-11.mp3 ^{matondoni extract}

Ogoya Nengo

Agnieszka — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:32:24 +0000

During the last days I worked out a track-idea based on the recordings we did on march 11th in the small village of the female singer Ogoya Nengo.
After an incredible welcome-ceremony, Ogoya asked us to enter her home. In a split second the atmosphere changed totally. The music stopped and everybody inside of the room began to pray. Solely all the cows, sheep and cocks outside didn´t change at all….
Fortunately my small recording machine was switched on during the prayer. Of course I asked somebody after the ceremony if I could use this recording one day and he said yes.
http://www.barabara.fm/videoblog/music/6-15ogoya.mp3 ^{Ogoya Nengo}

Photo Update and Video Rework

monade — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:23:54 +0000

I added some new photos and descriptions about the long sunday 22/03/09, where we met the Sengenya music and dance group at Mbui’s place. There are also some new photos in the report about the Galana River boat trip to meet the Gonda dance music group.
I also revised all Videos to a better resolution and format. Enjoy.
Oh, by the way, do you wake up or open your eyes first?

Back in Hamburg

monade — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:24:09 +0000

Today we arrived in Hamburg, after wonderfull and exciting five weeks in Kenya.
Because of two other projects Sven has to play in april he will start to work on the album based on the Kenyan recordings in mid-May. From this point the production process will be documented by posting lots of mp3s, etc.
In the meantime Agnieszka will add new videos and new photos to the existing posts every few days and we’ll follow up with the reports about the missing days as soon as possible.
Please feel free to leave lots of comments.

1st tour finished

monade — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:32:33 +0000

A short review of the 9 days trip to the western side of Kenya:
We travelled from the border to Uganda in the northern part of Nyanza to the adjacent country in the south which is Tanzania.
It was great to see the landscape during the drives, the different people walking along the road and small markets in between which are located among the many small townships around. The colorfulness of all of them is impressive. You see women with beautiful suits wearing big bags or cans on their heads gracefully and lightly. Students of different schools are wearing matching school uniforms. Cows and coats graze on the edge of the roads and of course taxi drivers, shop keepers and many others engaged with their own private businesses.
As already mentioned in earlier posting we met many interesting, warmhearted musicians and made a lot of recordings and video shootings which have still to be reviewed.
In the evening we took a cab to Kisumu Airport to go back to Nairobi by plane.

http://www.barabara.fm/videoblog/music/17-3Flugzeug.mp3 ^{after the landing}

The main city of Kenya bid us welcome with one of these incessant traffic jams. Unfortunately Nairobi does not have a subway. Therefore the whole city is a never ending jam between 7.00 – 9.00 in the morning and 5 and 8 in the evening. After all the air was definitely better at Kisumu

a short night

monade — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:45:16 +0000

The last evening was very nice, but the night was definitely too short.
We were on the road to South Nyanza in the late evening. It was very dark and nothing was to be seen, so Agnieszka asked our companions: “I wonder how the people find home?” and scored a coup. They all doubled up laughing for ages and mentioned the joke on the next day again and again.
After quite a long drive on a road that was not really drivable (just barabara!) we arrived at Sero. There it turned out, that the hotel we had in mind was fully booked – and notabene it was quite late and we were in the middle of nowhere, at least in our perception. So we decided first to have a beer, while Sven and Tabu went to another place to figure out another possibility to stay overnight. A beer succeeded a beer and we talked about everything under the sun. The discussion went from politics in general to Kenya’s president Kibaki and his wife, to the capabilities of women in leadership, to the loss of culture in the younger generation and many other topics. It was so inspiring and warmhearted at the same time.

Finally we found a very cheap hotel in the already mentioned middle of nowhere. The rooms were simple but clean. At two o clock in the night it began to rain. The rain pattered on our corrugated iron roof so loudly, that we thought the Armageddon is drawing near.

At three o clock the rain stopped and we felt asleep again. Just under two hours later the owner of the hotel began to do his morning routine and the laundry just beside our room. And at half past five somebody started to listen to some Ohangla music at full volume….

After breakfast and tons of coffee we met with Onguko. Many years ago Onguko was one of the best and highly esteemed drummers of the whole Nyanza region but alcohol made a human wreck out of him. He was trembling the whole time. Finally Onguko sang two of his favourite traditional songs.

http://barabara.fm/videoblog/music/onguko_voice_130309.mp3^Onguko

Onguko has never played on an album so far. The recording we did today is his first recording that will be published.

Arrival at Goethe-Institut Nairobi

monade — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:12:44 +0000

The 1st working day @ Goethe-Institut right in the centre of Nairobi. A lot of huge business buildings, shopping malls, small shops and restaurants make you first feel, like in many other metropolitan cities.

At the Goethe-Institut we meet the very nice people working here: Marie, Katharina, Barbara, Irene, Peter, Anne, Julia, Patrick, James, Judy, Esther and Johannes. Today there are many excellent german speeking Africans at the Institut: German teachers from South Africa to Camerun, from Mozambique to Cote d’Ivoire who are having a teachers training seminar.
We had lunch with Johannes at a Swahili restaurant called the Kingfisher (Koinange Street) and one of these excellent coffees at Java, a local coffee house where the busy CBD crowd hangs out. Sven spent the afternoon at the National Theatre and met some of the local musicians. We stay for supper at the terrace of Kengeles (also Koinange Street) and call it a day.

Bon voyage to Kenya

monade — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:50:06 +0000

Today in the morning at 7 o’clock the voyage started at the Hamburg Airport. Our friend Carla took us there. At the counter we were charged a huge amount for excess baggage by Lufthansa – so be sure to have only 20 K with you or take an other airline! I forgot my jacket at the airport check, while they made trouble because of my big Sony FX-1 video camera. I like airports but there is always a lot of stress there. Now we are having a stop over at Zurich Airport on the way to Nairobi.
We started to track the journey here. So maybe it’s not so special and interesting, but for the curious ones, you might see the Zurich airport area here.

1st video recording: Sven preparing playbacks

monade — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:26:11 +0000

Here is the first session: preparing playbacks for the field and voice recordings in Kenya:

Sven prepairing playbacks for Kenya

Playbacks

monade — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:00:59 +0000

During my trip to Kenya I intend to record singers and other musicians in two different ways. First I will try to record the people as purely and as natural as possible. But second I prepared some playbacks that I will try to use. I am eager to see how musicians from Kenya will react on this kind of music.
Below you can listen to some of the playbacks. Comments are always welcome.