BaraBara.fm - A Journey into the Sound of Kenya » recordings

Joseph Oganga Extract

Agnieszka — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:41:43 +0000

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 little bit to soft. May be it´s a good idea to record a pretty loud drum part for the middle section of the song.
http://www.barabara.fm/videoblog/music/Nyatiti1-Ausschn.mp3 ^{joseph oganga extract}

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Album Sessions No. 1

Agnieszka — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:33:52 +0000

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 worked up yet. They don´t represent any finished tracks.

Session No. 1:
First I began to work on the material we recorded on march 11th in a small village close to the Lake Victoria. An old man who is a singer and a percussionist played some of his favourite songs at one of these small huts with a corrugated iron roof.
On top of the drum groove he played for us, I recorded a straight offbeat brush pattern on a snare drumhead and two figures on my wooden bass drum.
http://www.barabara.fm/videoblog/music/oldman2.mp3 ^{Example No.1}
I am not so sure yet about the marimba rolls in the second verse. Also the vibes at the end of the mp3 is may be a little bit to cheesy but I think the groove works pretty well.

Here is the video Agnieszka made of this unique encounter:

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atmo recordings and a jam session

monade — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:50:02 +0000

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.
http://barabara.fm/videoblog/music/16-3-Atmo-Kisumu.mp3 ^{Atmo Kisumu}
In the evening some young guys invited us to join a small jam session at Kiboko Beach. A very nice guy called Erartus, who is a singer, a guitar player and a Nyatiti player, Agnieszka and Sven took a Tuc-Tuc to Kiboko Beach. A Tuc-Tuc is the main cab at Kisumu; it has three wheels and makes a hell of a noise…. Listen to our Tuc-Tuc-Ride to Kiboko Beach.
http://barabara.fm/videoblog/music/16-3-TucTuc.mp3 ^Tuc-Tuc
At Kiboko we played some music with two acoustic guitars, a melodika, and some small percussion instruments while the crickets played there own music a stone´s throw away from us.
http://barabara.fm/videoblog/music/16-3-Kibokosession.mp3 ^{Kiboko Session}

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well deserved break

monade — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:59:34 +0000

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 and edit all of the foto and film material. That’s a nice
way of working!

At three o’clock we took a well deserved break and decided to take a closer look at Lake Victoria, which is only a few minutes away from the Kisumu Hotel where we are staying. In front of the hotel you can see several men with bicycles hanging around. We asked two of them to take us to the lake. This was our first ride on a bicycle taxi, which is a common transportation vehicle in Kisumu. You can see women with heavy shopping bags or men coming back from work on the bycicle racks. The drivers pedal like mad getting them up the hill, for only 20 shilling (which is about 20 Cents).
So we arrived at Kiboko Beach and paid of course much more just to overcome our quiter dash of exploitation. The Lake Victoria area is a wonderful place to relax. We sat down under a huge palm and ordered two of these delicious Kenyan mango juices.
Later on we met some children playing there. They were singing wonderful children’s songs and of course Sven asked them if he could record their singing. Instead of paying a fee we offered sweets which were well received by these four cute children.
Listen to the song a 5 years old girl from Kisumu sang to us:

http://barabara.fm/videoblog/music/15-3-5_years_old-Girl.mp3 ^{Children’s song}

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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.

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Dancing Neighbors [V.2]

monade — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:14:19 +0000

Today we went on a two-day-trip (see pictures on the left) to the south of Lake Victoria. In the late afternoon we arrived at Rongo Village, a small township. There we met with a traditional Bul-Ensemble. It took less than fifteen minutes until the whole neighborhood joined the session.
The ensemble played great but it was even better to see how more than 5 old women began to dance to the music that has been played in the red dust of Rongo Village.

http://www.barabara.fm/videoblog/music/village_crazyman_120309.mp3 ^{Sound of Rongo Village}

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1st recording at Kisumu

monade — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:27:42 +0000

Today we went to the home place of Jack Nyadundo (see pictures on the left) which is in the hills very close to Kisumu. Jack Nyadundo is one of the pioneeers of Ohangla, a kenyan music style that is mostly be played by a percussion band, a keyboard player and a singer. Currently Ohangla is the big thing at all of the hip clubs of Kisumu.

Listen to the music:
http://barabara.fm/videoblog/music/jack_100309.mp3 ^{Jack Nyadundo & his band}

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work and dancing in Nairobi

monade — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:01:55 +0000

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.

http://barabara.fm/videoblog/music/ratai_060309.mp3 ^{First Recording/Ratai}

I was busy working on the barabara-website. Now we are all going to the finissage of an exhibition that took place at the Goethe-Institut: ‘It’s a pity that we only exist in the future’. Our friend DJ Andi Teichmann came from Berlin to play one of his amazing sets at the opening.
The party is taking place at a bar close to the institute, a publication accompanying the exhibition will be launched, djs are going to play music, I’m curious to see how and where the people party.

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