Niwel Tsumbu: Milimo

Congolese-born, Ireland-based guitarist Niwel Tsumbu admits that it took some plucking up of courage to make a solo album. Since moving to Cork in 2004 Tsumbu has always played in collaborative settings encompassing, jazz, rock, classical and folk. Partial credits include Sinead O'Connor, Buena Vista Social Club, Nigel Kennedy, Steve Cooney, Dave Flynn, Baba Maal, the music of Steve Reich and a long-running duo project with percussionist Eamonn Cagney.

Tsumbu also played on Rhiannon Giddens' You're The One (Nonesuch Records, 2023) and the Silkroad Ensemble's American Railroad: A Musical Journey of Reclamation (Nonesuch Records, 2024). Not bad for a lad who did not take up the guitar until the age of 16, and who enrolled in music college in Kinshasa a year later without a guitar to his name.

On Milimo Tsumbu displays a fascinating hybrid language that revels in the passions and grace of flamenco, Congolese rhythms, jazz and European classical music. Tsumbu blurs these lines more fully on some compositions than others, with "Rubato" a case in point. More overtly African-influenced compositions like "Milimo" follow traditional pathways where Tsumbu plays as though schooled in the desert blues of Boubacar Traore and Bassekou Kouyate. The one traditional song, "Masta," is a joyous coming together of dancing rhythms, vocal chant-cum-harmony and intricately spun melodic lines.

If the title of "Gracias Paco" was not clue enough, then Tsumbu's rasgueado technique leaves no doubt that this is the Congolese's heartfelt tribute to Paco de Lucia. The fiery rhythmic intro and outro aside, Tsumbu plays with a tenderness—also part of de Lucia's vocabulary—that speaks volumes. Oddly, perhaps, three classical études fall between the rootsier compositions. It is not the Bach-like spirit of these elegant interludes that denotes their outlier character in the set as much as their fleeting duration; At 41 seconds, 19 seconds and a blink-and-you-miss-it ten seconds in length, these feel just a little undercooked.

Only one of the compositions tops three-and-a-half minutes, but Tsumbu packs a lot into short time frames. He exhibits virtuosity in both controlled flashes— anyone who saw Tsumbu in the seemingly defunct power trio The Multiverse will know he can rip it up like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and John McLaughlin—and in extended counterpoint, notably on "Polyphony" and "To be Continued." Technique, however, is but a key to unlocking Tsumbu's muse, and if there is one thing that guides his hands it is a beautiful melody. But as the ambient, echo-drenched meditation "The Silence Within" moodily demonstrates, Tsumbu will not be boxed in. Courage? Tsumbu has it in spades. He always has.

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