CLANDESTINO FESTIVAL

The reason Konono N ° 1 did not come to Clandestino last year was that they were denied visas by the Swedish Embassy in Congo-Kinshasa. However, this time their Belgian booking agent Divano Production has managed to arrange visas for the Schengen countries through contacts at the highest level, resulting in renewed diplomatic passports. It is sometimes what is needed – also for a cult group like this.

The thumb piano collective Konono N ° 1 comes to Gothenburg with the powerful, graphic rhythms, and mbira-notes electrified by rudimentary enhancer. They combine electronic likembé (a traditional thumb piano resembling mbira) with voices, dance and percussion instruments made from different materials from a scrap heap. In Congo’s capital Kinshasa, they have had fame since the 70’s, but it was only a couple of years ago, after the album Congotronics (Crammed Records 2005), that they broke through at festivals in Europe and worldwide. The electronics is minimal, partly home grown, and one hundred percent analog, which also gives rise to a crackly live sound. The group’s rudimentary equipment includes a microphone carved in wood and equipped with a magnet from a generator and a gigantic horn-shaped speaker.

Actually the group is called L’Orchester folklorique TP Konono N ° 1 de Mingiedi. “TP” is shorthand for tout puissant (all powerful) but it is also a way to pay tribute to the Congolese musician Franco called TP OK Jazz. Truck driver and likembe player Mawangu Mingiedi who is now seventy years old formed the band more than three decades ago. Mingiedi is bazombo, an ethnic group whose homeland is situated on the border of Angola. He adapted his ensemble to zombo ritual music originally played with wind instruments made of ivory, one of the haunted raw materials that – under King Leopold II’s colonial rule – led to one of the worst genocides in human history.

It is the first time Konono N ° 1 performs in Sweden, after years of hyper-intense touring in Africa, North America and Europe.