And this is a longer version based on the recordings we have done with Joseph Oganga right before we met with Owino Koyo on march 11th. I think the version is still a little bit to cheesy and a… Read the rest
10 days ago Sven began to work on the kenyan album. From today he will post some audio examples once a week. Hopefully these extracts give you an impression about the album process. Of course the mp3s are not perfectly… Read the rest
Our last day at Kisumu: In the morning Sven went for a walk to the center of Kisumu and recorded some of the atmosphere and soundscapes.
Atmo Kisumu
In the evening some young guys… Read the rest
After 5 exciting days at the countryside of Nyanza we now have the time to review the results. We sat down at the swimming pool of Kisumu Hotel to listen to all of the recordings Sven did and to arrange… Read the rest
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.
Onguko
Onguko has never played on an album so far. The recording we did today is his first recording that will be published.
Today we went on… Read the rest
Today we went to the home place of… Read the rest
Sven has set up his equipment at the auditorium and is rehearsing for the concert. He has already met with a young Nyatiti player from Nairobi called Ratai and finally Sven and Ratai did the first recording for the barabara-project.… Read the rest
Sven says...Agnieszka says...
