Tumbuka Voices

Emerging from the same cultural and geographical milieu as the recent Malawi Mouse Boys’ album, Umoza (meaning ‘togetherness’) is a school for street children in northern Malawi set up some years ago by the Irish Catholic order of the Brothers of St John. On this disc, the children from the school sing in their unbroken voices with ardent enthusiasm and a palpable energy, over clattering percussion. But although the sound could hardly be described as sophisticated, somehow the record lacks the simple, heartfelt charm of the MMB. The production by Justin Adams and John Dunford does not attempt to gloss the rawness of the young voices and the Western embellishments by Sharon Shannon on accordion and Adams himself on guitar are unobtrusive enough, making it hard to identify the problem.

Perhaps it’s the subject matter that supplies the grating edge, for there is an undeniable whiff of the 19th century missionaries here. No song translations are provided but we are given one-line summaries. The lyrics of ‘Imwe Fumu Themba Lithu’, we are told, ‘explain how essential the Umoza programme is’, while on ‘Yewo Wa St John’, ‘gratitude is expressed to St John Of God for establishing the Umoza Musical Programme’. It may be well meaning but the sense of cultural imposition is at odds with the authenticity of the sound. Musically, there’s no real change of pace and the nine tracks more or less merge into each other, so that it’s something of a relief that the album is less than 40 minutes long.