Amampondo are, like myself, from Cape Town and were formed in 1978 in Langa, which is a township just on the outskirts of the city and the original aim was to preserve the rich musical traditions of South Africa in general and the Xhosa people in particular. An ethnomusicologist (wouldn't you like that on your business card?) named Andrew Tracey introduced the group to some fast vanishing Southern African instruments like the Kudu horn, the akadinda, a large wooden xylophone and the chopi xylophone from Mozambique and since then they have gone on to play everywhere from Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday celebrations at Wembley in London to the Atlanta Olympics and just about every country you'd care to mention the world over.
Amampondo tend to play traditional African music, which is of course dominated by the drum and vocal harmonies that make it perfect for someone like Henrik Schwarz to tinker with. For my money Henrik Schwarz has been the freshest thing to hit the music scene in years and on I Exist Because of You the percussive groove augmented by Henrik's expert placing of the vocals in the mix make this quite possibly the best heads down dancing record that has been released in a long time. Far too many records are way too long but this one, which clocks in at just under ten minutes, is far too short for my liking. This is definitely one of those records that once I've finished listening to it I pick up the needle and start again - it has all the elements that I look for in house music and in music in general for that matter and I really hope that by the end of the year we get two or three more records of this quality, which will take some doing, but if we do then it will have been a very good year for music indeed.
Henrik Schwarz/Amampondo - I Exist Because of You - Henrik Schwarz Live Version
No comments:
Post a Comment