Ekuka

Nyege Nyege Tapes is a small, obscure label based in Kampala, Uganda. They have released a small number of cassettes (yes, cassette tapes) and vinyl albums of modern Ugandan artists and this, their latest venture, sees them presenting historic recordings of thumb piano/vocal performances by a locally celebrated griot musician, Ekuka Moriss Sirikiti. Dubbed from radio broadcasts between 1978 and 2006 this collection of infectious recordings is of lo-fi quality but, bizarrely, this seems to add to the musical charm of the performances.

Moriss Sirikiti plays his lukeme (the local name for thumb piano) in a dynamic looping fashion. He has some sort of homemade foot-drum contraption that makes it sound as if a marimba is acting as accompaniment to an antique mechanical music box. It is a highly engaging sound and it acts as a persistent backdrop to his strange and startling vocals which, judging by the audible audience reaction on one song, are both hilarious and culturally incisive. One track, sung in pidgin English with a single-stringed fiddle accompaniment, gives us an indication of the man's lyrical wit. The final track is an intriguing electronic ‘re-working’ of a track that could easily be a soundtrack to a piece of avant garde psychedelia.