Wachaga

New eagerly awaited LP from the maverick Kutiman, based on field recordings he made in Tanzania of local musicians, then manipulated, layered and expanded in his home studio. A one of a kind opportunity for a musical trip to the motherland, through the eyes, ears and heart of one of the most fascinating and adventurous musicians in contemporary music.

People have been living around the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro for millennia. One day in 2014 another jeep pulled up, in a rural neighborhood where many people from the Wachaga nation live, work and play. This jeep contained Ophir ‘Kutiman’ Kutiel, the producer, multi-instrumentalist and filmmaker who is get-stopped-in-the-supermarket famous in his home country despite being terminally shy of the spotlight. Kutiman carried microphones, video recording equipment and a request for creative collaboration to Tanzania – and he left Wachaga with a set of recordings.

Some of these were of everyday sounds and some contained special sounds: school children from the city of Arusha playing drums or the dancers who wore bells to add a percussive element to the movement, like the metal plate in a tap dancer’s shoe. This fourth studio album is a combination of the material he collected on his 2014 trip with recordings made with saxophonist Shlomi Alon, trumpeter Sefi Zisling and trombonist Yair Slutzki, alongside his own playing and studio wizardry.

He was listening to a lot of spiritual jazz during the recording, and in a departure from his usual cut and paste style, played on top of the recordings.