A praised alternative composer with African roots will be releasing her new album this coming May, which includes her single song “What did the rain say”.
Pablo Muñoz
Berlin-based composer Dumama is releasing “Towards an expanse”, her new album, on 8 May, less than a month from now.
A six-year project that was recorded across New York, Cape Town, Berlin, and Johannesburg, the album is sometimes gospel and sometimes electro-psychedelic space travel. This fits into the creative journey of Dumama, who has produced work praised by The Guardian as “wonderfully inventive”.
The record will feature the single What did the rain say, a reclamation of ancestry and artistic collaboration through an exploration of the language of water, drought, and storms. It has garnered around 5,000 listens on Spotify since its release in February.
Dumama said that What did the rain say grew out of sitting with the language of water and the tension between drought and overwhelming storms.” And she explains thar she invited friends to “share their own rain stories, which turned the song into a collective reflection on what water might be communicating to us.”
The music on the album blends South African elder musicians like Miriam Makeba and Madosini with contemporary experimental artists like Björk, FKA Twigs, and Pamela Z, resulting in a musical work that defies singular genres, spanning future folk, spiritual jazz, gospel, left-field electronics, and post-punk.
Dumama’s work on this album is centered on the traditional Xhosa bowed instrument, the ‘uhadi’, a bow that uses the player’s chest as a resonator, and she combines this with field recordings and vocal distortions that explore Black lives, circular time, anti-imperialist logic, grief, and ancestral reclamation.
Dumama was put on the global map with her 2020 work “Buffering Juju”, a collaboration with South African artist Kechou. That record tells the story of a woman’s journey after being released from prison through an example of so-called “nomadic future folk,” which blends raw acoustic tradition and modern electronics.
The release of her new album is accompanied by a music video directed by Jessica Garfield and confirmation of Dumama’s performances at festivals including Rewire Festival, BDCST Festival, and Nuits Sonores, with other venues to be announced later in the year. Soundway Records, in collaboration with Mushroom Hour, is the record label releasing this artistic work by Dumama. It was produced by Nandi Ndlovu, with vocal production by Dion Monti.
(Photos by Jessica Garfield, supplied by PR)
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