Jazz Articles about Konono No.1

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Konono No.1: Meets Batida

by James Nadal
March 15, 2016

The city of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the home of Konono No.1, a band which has taken the African likembé (thumb piano) from a folkloric instrument, into the electronic age. Back in the sixties, it's founder Mingiedi Mawangu figured out how to amplify the likembé, using salvaged car parts, and wired it through a guitar amp. Though he passed in 2015, his son Agustin Makuntima Mawangu carries on as leader, maintaining the amplified likembé as ...

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Konono No.1: Congotronics

by Chris May
April 13, 2005

Once in a while an album comes along which is so insanely wonderful that--jazz or not--it needs to be brought to the attention of this community. Such an album is Congotronics by Kinshasa trance band Konono No.1.

Unless you live in Kinshasa, or were at Amsterdam's Paradiso club last year for the recording of track five, you are unlikely to have heard anything remotely like this throbbing slab of mutant roots meet lo-tech/hi-decibel electronica heaven ever before in ...