Yaral Sa Doom begins with tiny sounds: whispered percussion, closely recorded strings, a voice entering softly and a rhythm that seems to assemble itself from objects being touched by hand. Then the music opens outward. Flutes, saxophone, synthesizer, percussion and call-and-response singing appear as if the walls of the recording have disappeared, revealing a much larger gathering behind them. Wau Wau Collectif’s debut is full of these expansions. Intimate details keep leading into communal space, while the communal music continually makes room for one vulnerable voice, one instrument or one child to step forward.
The project began in 2018 when Swedish musician and producer Karl Jonas Winqvist traveled to Toubab Dialaw, a former fishing village near Dakar that had become an important Senegalese arts community. Working with multi-instrumentalist and engineer Arouna Kane, he recorded improvisations with local musicians, percussionists, poets, singers and beat makers at Kane’s Ridial World Studio. Winqvist later returned to Sweden, where additional parts were recorded and files were exchanged with Kane through WhatsApp. That unusual construction can be heard in the album’s floating architecture. Sounds from different rooms, countries and years do not always sit together in conventional studio perspective, yet the slight dislocation becomes part of the beauty.
“Yaral Sa Doom” is a Wolof phrase meaning “educate the young,” and the album treats education as something larger than formal instruction. It includes teaching through music, memory, spiritual practice and participation. Children’s voices are not added merely to produce sweetness. On “Mouhamodou Lo and His Children,” the contrast between an older voice and a child’s voice makes knowledge feel physically passed between generations. Elsewhere, chants and responses suggest that learning occurs by joining the sound, repeating it and discovering where one’s own voice belongs inside the group.
The music draws from Senegalese traditions, Sufi praise songs, spiritual jazz, dub and electronic production without becoming a display cabinet of influences. “Thiante” centers Jango Diabaté’s xalam, whose bright, intricate lines are surrounded by flute and gentle keyboards. “Salamaleikoum” places Arouna Kane’s welcoming vocal against the curious breath of Winqvist’s Omnichord. “Riddim Rek Sa Niouy Mom” moves through bass, scratchy guitar and delayed voice with a dub producer’s attention to depth, while “Si Tu Savais Juste” introduces playful electronic tones around Ndongo Faye’s drums and Henry Moore Selder’s organ. These combinations feel exploratory rather than calculated. The musicians sound pleased by what happens when their materials meet.
That pleasure does not prevent the album from addressing serious subjects. Education, immigration and contemporary Senegalese social conditions run through the words, while “Gouné Yi” carries a darker, processional weight. Yet even the heaviest ideas are held inside music that remains generous. The album rarely pushes one singer or instrumentalist toward the role of commanding star. More than twenty contributors move through it, and the arrangements allow leadership to change from moment to moment. Sometimes a voice directs the piece, sometimes percussion, sometimes a flute line, and sometimes an electronic texture added thousands of miles from the original session.
“Legui Legui” closes the album by making this shared authorship especially clear. Ousmane Ba’s flute and Kane’s bass establish one relationship, then Annarella Sörlin’s flute and Lars Fredrik Swahn’s piano enter from the Swedish side of the project. The performance does not ask the listener to decide which country, tradition or production stage owns the finished music. Each contribution changes the others. Winqvist and Kane’s editing preserves that movement instead of forcing the sessions into one uniform style.
The album’s warmth comes partly from this refusal to make collaboration sound neat. Yaral Sa Doom remains a little dreamlike, with voices hanging in reverb, instruments appearing through mist and rhythms changing shape beneath them. But its softness is not vagueness. At the center is a clear belief that music can carry knowledge between people who are separated by geography, language and circumstance. A village session becomes a Stockholm overdub, which becomes a WhatsApp message, which returns to Senegal and eventually reaches another unknown listener. The title asks that the young be educated; the record demonstrates one possible method by allowing everyone involved to teach, answer, listen and add something of their own.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Hi.