Ngiwu Shwabada

The 2017 debut by the young, dreadlocked South African jazz guitarist and singer Sibusile Xaba, Unlearning/Open Letter to Adoniah, received a five star write-up in #132 and this reviewer attempted (without success, it must be said) to get it included as one of the magazine's ‘Albums of the Year.’ Recorded live in one continuous take, the follow-up is every bit as experimental and charismatic. Finger-picking a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar, there's a weightless, hallucinogenic quality to Xaba's gentle melodies that combines echoes of late 1960s prog-folk and avant-jazz with South African tribal styles such as maskandi and malombo.

Over the improvisational intensity of his guitar, Xaba and Kholofelo ‘Naftali’ Mphago chant, murmur and ululate in a fashion that Xaba calls ‘conversations with my ancestors, transmitted into song to be shared with mankind.’ Xaba pays tribute on the record to his mentors Philip Tabane, the veteran South African jazz guitarist and inventor of molombo (a fusion of jazz, Brazilian tropicália, flamenco and African forms) and to the Zulu guitar maestro Madala Kunene (whose recordings for the B&W/Melt 2000 label are worth checking out if you can find them). And yet he really sounds like neither of them as he creates his own unique musical mythology.