A complex, constantly evolving, musical relationship now in its fifth year, the project has seen the band producing music in both Kenya, for their self-titled 2009 album, and in London with the second Power Punch LP. The group features Nyatiti master Joseph Nyamungu and Lou percussionist Charles Owoko, both from the Nyanza Province in Western Kenya, as well as London-based musicians Tom Skinner (drums), Jesse Hackett (vox/keys) and Louis Hackett (bass).
‘Nyanza’ is the third album from the cross-cultural, boundary surpassing Owiny Sigoma Band. For their third offering, the band travelled to the Nyanza Province of Western Kenya – home of their two members Joseph Nyamungu and Charles Owoko – to explore the birthplace of Luo music. The result is a string of striking tracks, the music always feeling raw and organic, the rhythms and sounds reflecting the spontaneous jams from which the record was born.
Nyanza is a truly unique record, a faultless melting pot of disparate sounds, one that reflects the ambience and energy of the environments in which it was made. Arresting electronic grooves fit side by side with soft Lou singing and traditional Nyatiti music to create yet another pivotal moment in the turning cogs of this intoxicating, often surprising, soundclash.
“The Owiny Sigoma spaceship has landed, creating an electronic age album with a very real, always fun-loving, human pulse”
The Guardian
“A bloody masterpiece”
