Faka Mulilo

As a boy in the late 90s growing up in the village of Kolomwe in Zambia, Waina Kolomwe was given a prophecy by the local sangoma (witch doctor) who told him that one day he would make music with “three rockers from the land of [a] thousand lakes.” Fast forward more than a quarter of a century and he pitches up in Tampere in the heart of Finland’s Lakeland, recording Faka Mulilo with guitarist Ville Salonen, bassist Riku Pirttiniemi and drummer Miikka Heikkinen. Naturally, he had to call the band Zangoma, but the psychedelic funk rock of the quartet’s debut is a long way from the traditional music of his native village. The opener, ‘Chimbilimbili’, sounds like they’ve been listening to Cream’s Disraeli Gears on continuous rotation, ‘Small Talk’ bears the influence of Funkadelic and ‘ZOMBI’ sounds like a Black Sabbath outtake. Make of it all what you will…