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Stromâs first album in 30 years â and last, following her death in December â is a quiet riot of digitally manipulated drones and noise
Created aural collages filled with iridescent light and patterns . Pauline Anna Strom. Photograph: Aubrey Trinnaman
Created aural collages filled with iridescent light and patterns . Pauline Anna Strom. Photograph: Aubrey Trinnaman
Fri 12 Feb 2021 03.30 EST
The music of the San Francisco-based composer Pauline Anna Strom, who died just before Christmas, aged 74, might be described as new age â a mystical, trance-like synthesised babble that could conceivably accompany meditation sessions or yoga classes. But Strom was a cheerfully cantankerous figure who drew from more arcane Californian sources. Listen to the music that she released in the 1980s as Trans-Millenia Consort and you can hear traces of the blissful minimalism of Terry Riley; the wobbly electronica that Stephen Hill used to play on his Hearts of Space radio
Kikuyu musicians now divided between Raila, Ruto factions 1 month ago
Gospel artist Ben Githae perform on stage during Jubilee rally at Uhuru park on 9 September 2017in Nairobi.[Edward Kiplimo,Standard].
After the death of Joseph Kamaru and John Demathew, Kikuyu musicians vowed to remain united and steer the community in one direction. But beyond the familiar rhythm of their beat, the messages buried in the lyrics are as divided as Mt Kenya politicians.
The musicians have been sucked into the different political factions if their recent meetings with former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Deputy President William Ruto are to be considered. Gospel artiste Ben Githae, famed for the
Kenyans mourn slain Kikuyu musician Mighty salim
By Hon. Sankok David
Mighty Salim was a Kikuyu musician,
Mighty Salim was a one man guitar,
Mighty Salim was a great inspiration to me,
I learnt most of Kikuyu words from his songs until I mastered the language.
Kenyans have lost a great man,
He was the Kenyan Jim Reeves,
His songs inspire love and caution wayward people,
His songs soothe our nights,
His songs reverberate our hearts,
His songs massage our egos by singing direct to our life’s challenges.
I love his songs especially;
Sinyorita,
Kanyina Kanini.
I love the songs so much ever since I was in the University of Nairobi (UoN) to date,
Beneath the rumbling electronic drones, glittery distortion and melodic hums of ‘Solace’, a track on KMRU’s album ‘Peel’ for Editions Mego, there’s something moving. As the piece unravels, rustling, organic sounds emerge from its undergrowth, and trickles of birdsong ease in and out of earshot. Like all of the Kenyan sound artist’s music, it’s subtle, and rewards close, attentive listening. The more you pay attention, the more these sounds reveal themselves, and for almost 13 minutes, the world outside dissolves into a fog of glowing textures. The noisy dread of the news cycle disappears and, for just a moment, its title makes total sense.
The musicians who massaged our temples for us this year took more than one approach some immersive soundscapes, some acoustic lullabies, at least one wild pop-punk experiment.
In 2020, there were many ways to understand the year in music; this week, we re considering five. Even more than mindfulness or self-care, chill has morphed into a context-flattening buzzword, not quite a genre of music but certainly a tool used to categorize it, especially as a beacon of calm in your streaming app of choice. Still, it might be just the right term for the palliative care so many of us have spent the months indoors desperately self-administering, by way of whatever meditative media we could find. The musicians who massaged our temples for us this year took more than one approach: some immersive soundscapes, some acoustic lullabies, one wild pop-punk experiment. We couldn t conquer the year s chaos on our own, and on some days it conquered us but in our better moments, we could at leas