Horizon

Beginning as it does with the out-of-place Xhosa hymn, ‘Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika’, this otherwise delightful album gets off to an unusual start. Then again, when anything is sung by the Tokyo-born Anyango – the first woman to play the traditional eight-stringed harp of the Luo of Kenya – ‘out-of-place’ becomes a relative term. In 2005, Eriko Mukoyama set out to Kenya to learn the traditional eight-stringed harp of the Luo: the nyatiti. It’s made from hollowed¬out fig tree covered in cow skin and is traditionally strung with the Achilles’ tendons of cows, though these have today been replaced by nylon fishing lines. The nyatiti’s eight strings are said to be symbolic of stages of a man’s birth and death and therefore it is traditionally reserved for only male performers. Not to be deterred, however, Mukoyama adopted the stage name Anyango and became the first female player.

Her first album, Nyatiti Diva, was much more straightforward than her new venture and very much revolved around the harp’s distinctive sound. Horizon, however, departs from the traditional and uses the nyatiti to bridge the cultural gap between Japan and Kenya. She sings in both Swahili and Japanese and develops a style of music influenced by both cultures. While not every track on the album has quite mastered this hybrid style, Horizon shows a great deal of potential for future endeavours; Anyango has created a sound that exists somewhere between two seemingly distant countries.