Album Notes

A south – south collaboration.

Experts on Tanzanian traditions from Bagamoyo, meet with modern musicians from the city Dar Es Salaam:

There has been a great many “north-south” collaborations in the history of world music, but all too often European and American musicans have been using the music from the South as exotic spice in their too dull musical dishes.
Not so with the Tramo project, which is a south – south collaboration where teachers from Bagamoyo College of Arts, experts on Tanzanian traditions, meet with modern musicians from the city.

With modern dance musicians from Dar Es Salaam, the traditional musicans and singers create a new and hitherto unheard musical fusion. Traditional ngoma dances and music blend with electric instruments and urban attitudes to a music that resembles nothing you have heard before.


Curiosity!

The urge to explore

Creating new combinations

Making the hitherto unheard-of, heard:

Creativity & chords & colorful combinations

Deep tradition: Drums sounding and pots grinding

Urban instruments stepping lightly over old dance steps

Blending in with the ngomas and the voices

Instruments discovered and re-discovered

Old and new catching the rhythm and the melodies from each other

Creating new soundscapes

Children of spotlights and electronics

Merging with the bearers of tradition

The drums, the dancers, the minstrels of old

Finding their footing on stage with the keyboards and guitars

Teachers of tradition

Stars from city bars

Meeting at the crossroads of cultures old and new

Creating sparks of rhythms and melodies

New music rising like smoke from the fire

Heating the drums

Igniting and uniting

Players and listeners alike