Teranga [LP]

Teranga, the final album in the Wau Wau Collectif trilogy, the dreamy cross-cultural collaboration across cultures, finds the band finally coming together. Taking it's name from the Wolof word ""teranga"" is used to express a welcomeness, a hospitality to others, and something loosely as a shared meeting - an apt title for the album that is an expression of a meeting. The project began in the village of Toubab Dialaw in 2018, where two musicians Arouna Kane and Karl-Jonas Winquist first conceived of the idea. Over the subsequent years, the project evolved, with the two producers trading files back and forth over WhatsApp, incorporating their network of friends and colleagues into what would become a the Wau Wau Collectif, culminating in their first album ""Yaral Sa Doom"" (2021) and ""Mariage"" (2022). Their latest album, Teranga, is the third entry and final entry in this trilogy, finalized and mixed during the the band's first live tour - a five week sprawling journey across Europe with ""three swedes, three Senegalaise, and a French driver, a lovely mess of languages"", Karl-Jonas explains. At the heart at the heart of Wau Wau Collective is a strong musical foundation, borne not just by the wide cultural swath from which the collective draws inspiration but from the deftly talented musicians - composed and performed with a staggering 26 different songwriters and musicians, playing an impressive array of instrumentation, from balfon, ngoni, calabasse, violin, cello, saxophone, and omnicord. The resulting sound is complicated to place, but sonically has certainly found it's place in Teranga. At times, dreamy and meditative, but imbued with an organic soul, a wholly unique sound that is both anachronistic and future facing. ""Oh, Africa"" could be at home on a classic reissue, with an almost Turkish guitar riff, where 100 ans (their first live studio recording) reminiscent of early 2000s Amadou et Mariam.With roots in avant garde (Karl-Jonas has cited Barney Wilen's Moshi as an inspiration) while Wau Wau draws inspirations from these experiments, though diverging in their dedication to the collaborative spirit - a project enabled by cellphones, WhatsApp, and mp3s zipping around the internet - slightly ironic considering how acoustic and grounded and human it feels. As we close the chapter on the trilogy, Karl-Jonas insists that this may well be just the beginning: ""we have barely started in some ways"" he says, with plans shaping in the next year for getting the whole band together, and more tours on the horizon, more hope, more humanity, and more coming together.