Editor’s Note: Here at No Depression there’s too much great roots music in a year for us to cover it all. So in December, when new releases slow down, we ask writers to review some of the best albums we missed throughout the year in an on-going series called What We Missed.
World pop group The Kasambwe Brothers’ music evaporates borders, bringing their sound out of Malawi for global exposure. Even though the band was founded in1987, this is their first recording. Their debut self-titled album is on a label's debut as well, the newly formed MASS MoCa Records. The label is an arm of the Massachusetts Museum Of Contemporary Art dedicated to exposing new musical talent to the world. The label has partnered with Harlan Steinberger's Hen House Studios, which has previously produced records from artists including Sunny War and Willie Nelson.
The multi-generational band's sound is a blend of Western and African instrumentation. Vocalist /guitarist Joseph Msof is the only member of the trio playing a Western instrument. Chikwata's babatone is a strange hybrid of bass drum and bass that the operator straddles, thumping the drumhead with one hand while fretting the bass strings with the other. The device looks homemade, but not as much as the drummer's kit, a lively combination of pots and pans, bottle caps strung on a wire, a cymbal that looks suspiciously like an inverted truck hubcap all mounted on a well-worn wooden crate that drummer Fatsani Kennedy plays with mallets.
