?I am a rebel,? smiles the 70-year-old Stella Chiweshe. Her album ?Kasahwa: Early Singles? offers a fascinating introduction to the world of Mbira, with the term not only referring to the instrument, consisting of 22 to 28 metal keys mounted on a wooden healing tree body, but also to a musical genre ? and on a much wider level, to an entire culture and deeply spiritual lifestyle, very much at the core of the young Zimbabwean nation. Mbira is an ancient mystical music which has been played for over a thousand years by the Shona people, a group which forms the vast majority of the country?s population. Mbira pervades all aspects of Shona culture, both sacred and secular. Its most important function is as a ?telephone to the spirits of people, water, trees, stones and birds,? used to contact both deceased ancestors and tribal guardians, at all-night ceremonies. ?Kasahwa? is a collection of impossible-to-find early seven inches, eight cuts spanning the period from 1974 to 1983 and representing Mbira in its purest form. None of these songs has been released outside of Africa so far.
Tracks:
1. Ratidzo / Managing to do what people considered impossible 3:03
2. Chipindura / The herb that transforms anything 4:18
3. Kasahwa / Innermost emotional pain is like a fishbone stuck in the throat 2:54
4. Gomoriye / That Mountain of white rocks has fallen 3:18
5. Gwendurugwe / Game of Hide & Seek 3:10
6. Mayaya (Part 1&2) / The effect of healing herbs 8:11
7. Musarakunze / An orphan seeing what the late elders never saw 4:25
8. Nhemamusasa / Cutting branches for a temporal home 2:55
