Kutiman: Wachaga

Kutiman: Wachaga

Israeli kibbutznik and multi-instrumentalist Ophir Kutiel, who performs as Kutiman, specializes in cunningly stitched-together audio and video attention grabbers, as exemplified by his ThruYou series of funky YouTube bedroom instrumentals. On Wachaga (Siyal), though, he raises the stakes with far greater rewards, overdubbing—and dubbing up—a complete band over his 2014 Tanzanian field recordings of traditional Chagga tribal musicians residing beside Mount Kilimanjaro. A Bantu-singing chorus’ voices and stomping rhythms undergird uplifting spiritual jazz in the tradition of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. Kutiman’s production whisks together both musical entities into a Technicolor international froth of psychedelic grooviness.

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