In honor of all South African singers, I pick up this group to commemorate 1990, the official end of apartheid and my daughter birth "Léa".With a sound shaped by urban South Africa and honed during incandescent live performances, the Johannesburg quartet Tumi And The Volume have quickly forged an identity as rising stars of new African music.
They have released three albums in six years, yet Pick A Dream feels like their first proper studio album. Following At The Bassline, recorded in concert, and TATV, which also had a ‘live’ feel, they have developed a precise sleek sound, pulling in a wide range of atmospheres.
With this new offering, the group have really opened up their music to embrace the world.
Styling themselves as headless men, their quest for identity takes them into hypnotic waves of strings and percussion ("La Tête Savante"), where butterflies gently break bad news ("Through The Sunroof"), things are tough, frustrations many, and life spools along as in a film ("Moving Picture Frames") and where rebellion meshes with hope ("Play Nice").
It’s Hip Hop – as on killer track "Asinamali" and the explosive "Reality Check" – with added dimensions.
There’s a South African flavor throughout, especially on "Limpopo", but the message is universal and delivered in stunning poetic force by master MC Tumi Molekane.
The album contains a few surprises too with Danyel Waro guesting on vocals and kayamb.
This new project extends beyond music - they asked Hippolyte, a young French artist living in La Réunion, to supply the artwork. The result is a great album cover and a little graphic story inside the booklet which tells a mythological tale about the group’s beginnings.
It’s a beautiful piece of work, and one which you can’t download.
With Pick A Dream, TATV take their place as the most powerful African voices for the new generation. Turn up the volume!
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