The Welfare, Ystradgynlais
Sun 29 May
The Owiny Sigoma Band is not the vanity project of Swansea City’s latest African Cup of Nations signing moonlighting, rather a Kenyan/London fusion of members of electronica band Elmore Judd, who went on a musical exploration in the Nyanza Province, in West Kenya. There they found Joseph Nyamungo, a master of the nyatiti (an African lyre), and Charles Okoko, a percussionist, both practitioners of lou music hailing from a village called Owiny Sigoma. Since 2009, OSB have made three cracking albums for Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings label, with the most recent Nyanza, arriving last summer.
OSB blend traditional percussive West African music with electronica and dub, with members of the different factions taking turns on the mic, so expect to see laptops, two drummers, some quicksilver Nyatiti playing and some interesting dancing. Look out for I Made You, You Made Me, which is like Animal Collective going tribal, the driving Luo Land, and the sunny simplicity of Wires from their self titled and more organic debut.
Quite what OSB will make of Ystradgynlais is anybody’s guess, though let’s hope The Welfare doesn’t roll out the welcome mat through serving the new guest ale Changaa – or “Kill Me Quick”, a Kenyan homebrew rumoured to contain jet fuel and battery acid that fuelled one of the OSB’s wilder nights when they gigged in Joseph and Charles’ hometown.
Tickets: £10/£8. Info: 01639 843163
(CS)