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CD Review
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Sing Out!, CD Review >>
This two-disc set is billed as two sides of Zimbabwe's mbira queen, and that's the truth in advertising. She's a maestro on the thumb piano (mbira), who can be deeply soulful and spiritual, and yet also produce some of the liveliest Zimbawean dance music. The first disc, Trance Hits, focuses on her more spiritual moments, and there are plenty of them. With just a small ensemble she conjures up some remarkable spaces that draw the listener in and transports him on a journey, as with "Mhandu Ye Hove" or "Kusvotwa," with its eerie, startling vocal. It's trance music, but in the oldest sense of the word, setting up hypnotic rhythms that lull. It's the diametric opposite of the other 'classic hits' disc, which is made for the dance floor, beginning with the high powered jit of "Mese Maikwana" and never lets up. It even makes a turn into quite blatant pop with "Kudaru Kwangu." Apart from being a virtuoso musician---her playing forms much of the backbone of both discs, although never flashily, but the underpining of it all---she's also a powerful and persuasive singer, one of the great, if largely unknown, African artists of her generation. This collection, which gives her the chance to show her wares at length, truly does her justice, because she's an artist best heard at length, and explored in proper depth to be fully appreciated. 06/01/06
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