This is not jazz. This is not classical music. This is also “not” either. Its title says what it is – Tefiti – the category of the uncategorised whose known – unknown genre status is that which lies in its becoming, which can be rendered symbolic. As a search for sound and something inside it, we are experiencing the feel of what can be said to be the collective imagination of what it means to be being in becoming. What our hands hold, our hearts feel, our emotions are sensing, and our ears are listening to, is the sonic inscription that is sensitively touched deeply by the spiritual force whose spirit is that legendary lyricism and transposition delivered with unpretentious passions.
For the fact that this coming from Gabi Motuba’s commanding voice is well-fitting and such a voice being in the community of strings (two violas, one viola and a double bass) is also a testament that this is monumental work. We are listening to the lyric inscriptions where re-membering and bearing witness to something that lies within us is the beginning of multiple narratives that have not been told and are yet to be told as soon as language is re-instituted after it has exiled our very being. We are part of the ensemble as we are pushed up the air to travel with the voice and strings to give us that feeling of being lifted up in this down-pressing existential condition.
Here is the communication that defies non-communicability in the act of languaging. This non-referential fugitivity, whose enchantment is fidelity to form, is where listening means to embark on a journey to elsewhere in the essence of being. It is up to you where you want to as the past, present and future are weaved together without any fixity. Deep excavating accents elevate the ambience of the aural experience. Accordingly, there is no fear of how this music feels itself, and how it is felt. Eyes have seen those thin cracks on the wall that force their way through. This denotes the site where traces of sounds can be located, and putting the ear on the wall means listening to the soundscapes of the communal ensemble. There is no entry or exit. It is the invitation and deliverance. That is what Tefiti is purposed to do, it investigates what stands as the beginning. Narratives that take a form of sonic statements that are unheard of are not always haunting but hunting for the place to inhabit.
Mapping routes, streams, contours and channels means taking us there – yes, right there in the conjecture of fracture and suture, where the continued creation ceaselessly unfolds. The beginning of the end. That is why starting anywhere, everywhere, anyhow – to start with what is already ongoing means joining the communal congregation. Here is the offering. It is the ode for the life that was, is and still to be. This is the well where voice and strings are the liquid sound that satiates thirsty throats.
*Catch Gabi Motuba on her Cape Town Tour this March:
14 March 2019 – Alama Café
16 March 2019 – Young Blood, Featuring Pianist, Coila Enderstein
17 March 2019 – Kwa Sec
22 March 2019 – The Drawing Room Café
29 March 2019 – Alliance Francaise
