Zomba Prison Project: I Have No Everything Here

In 2013, producer Ian Brennan clandestinely documented the music found inside Zomba's maximum security institution in Malawi. Some of the recordings are fragments, brief and bluntly sung, but the first few tracks are longer and more coherent. They include one standout feature, in the form of Stefano Nyerenda's deep voice, accompanied by low bass, with handclaps and ghostly female voices. Then there's the rickety roll of Ben Masekese and officer Ines Kaunde's song ‘I See the Whole World Dying of AIDS’. Despite its subject matter and bleak title, it sounds paradoxically uplifting, using just voice, guitar and shaker. It's the males who are allowed to form bands, while the women are mostly only permitted to sing unaccompanied, apart from the use of basic bucket-drums.

It might have been preferable to have heard more than 31 minutes of these recordings, allowing for a greater spread and an increased depth, particularly as the set has been distilled down from six hours of material. Nevertheless, these 20 pieces are a fine selection, even if many of them are faded out prematurely. The opening run of songs is the most substantial part, in terms of both length and content; as we hit the second half, each scrapbook snippet flashes past at a minute or less, creating the feeling that time is most emphatically running out.