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special in the first place. “The tuning of the father and the son are slightly differ- ent and they wouldn’t change. That’s another blockage to external influences, because they have a special scale and you don’t hear it clearly at first, but when you put another instrument in with it, it becomes very evident.” He also invited three likembe players from Kasai Allstars, who have a very different sound to Konono, plus a horn section from the mili- tary (the latter sadly didn’t make it to the studio, but there’s always next time). “The big difference between the first session and this one was in Augustin’s playing, plus the drums were more inventive and varied.” The main recording with Konono was done live over three days, after which Vincent got down to the serious business of overdubbing the guests and mixing the whole thing until it shone.
o, Konono just plays its rigid sound and then he builds round it? “It’s not exactly like that. As I told you, they’re evolving slowly and sometimes they come up
with very interesting things that I’ve never heard before. So it’s not like I’m working round this monolithic, unchanging music. It’s changing, but when repetitive music changes, you don’t see it at first. It changes incrementally, you have to look for the change in order to find it, but it’s there! Of course, they haven’t started to play R&B or techno or whatever. The idea of the universal musician who looks for all kinds of influence all around him, is pretty Eurocentric. Even in America, there isn’t that tradition. So for Konono, there’s a wall between their music and mainstream Congolese music and they don’t want this wall to be taken down.”
Next up Vincent is working on a new recording with Kasai Allstars and as mem- bers of the Allstars appear on Assume Crash Position, he’s planning for Augustin to return the favour and contribute to these forthcoming sessions. How would he describe the difference between Kasai and Konono? “Well of course they’re both tra- ditional musicians electrified. But the big difference is that Kasai Allstars are an arti- ficial creation, it’s actually made up of members of four different groups who came together for one performance in Bel- gium. I couldn’t bring over all four of the groups and so suggested that two or three members of each came together to form a kind of Kasai supergroup. People said that it couldn’t be done, because there are West Kasaians and East Kasaians and they almost had a civil war in ‘59. They said we don’t even have the same scales!” They ini- tially came together to grab the opportu- nity to perform in Europe but, to every- one’s surprise, they loved it. “It took a madman like me to make it happen,” reck- ons Vincent. “At the basis of Kasai Allstars there’s a quest for change and incorporat- ing different styles into what they do, so it’s easier to make a record with them, because they’re much more open to exper- imentation.” Not something that could be said of Konono of course. “I’m expecting a lot from the encounter between Augustin and the main likembe player from Kasai Allstars. I want to have sessions with them for one hour every day for one week, record the results and see what we have.”
Talking to Vincent has helped me to understand my unusual experience at Konono’s live show. As he explains to me, the performance may be split into pieces, into tunes, but it’s better to view it as one
long evolving piece. “You have to change your parameters and dancing helps you to do this, the sound slowly evolves and you can feel this with your body.”
Jamie’s thanks to Vincent Kenis, Nicole Artingstall, Aharon Matondo and John Stevens. fRoots photoshoot thanks to Nick Sandamas at G&N Motors, Harringay.
www.crammed.be www.myspace.com/konononr1
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