Album Notes

Here is a solid hour of two of the greatest mbira masters in Zimbabwe, the late Thomas 'Gora' Wadharwa and Tute Chigamba. Moyo, the hosho player who often accompanies the great Newton Gwara, does a solid job. Musically for me this is a relaxed recording, the two mbira players folding their vocal and mbira parts together effortlessly, comfortable and at ease from years of playing together. In Gora's words, they have the same hands.

About half the songs are played in Mavembe (Gandanga) tuning, the rest in Dongonda tuning. On a Dongonda mbira, the upper lefthand keys are the same pitches as the righthand keys.

I gather from the liner notes that the recording session had moments of true hilarity because of Gora's lyrics, here reproduced faithfully in the liner notes and translated into English by Masimba Chiwanza and Joel Laviolette. Not being a Shona speaker, I can't detect the humor simply from listening, and can enjoy the music in a meditative mood none the wiser.

The mix places the mbira and Gora's voice in the foreground, Chigamba's voice somewhat back, and the hosho distinct but seemingly across the room so that every nuance of the two mbira is clearly audible. The mbira and hosho were recorded together, and then the singing overdubbed, at Shed Studios on September 9, 2000.

-Paul Novitski