Nyokabi Kariũki - peace places: kenyan memories

ATTN:Magazine

SA RECORDINGS.

The push and pull of disparate distances. These tracks are gathered from elements of emotional significance to Nyokabi Kariũki, all within her home of Kenya – the ocean at dawn, a stroll through a farm, voices of family, contributions from close friends, the interwoven languages of home and heritage – with the “peace places” of the title pointing to a unifying theme of providing inner centring. Yet when these recordings are assembled and overlain like this, they convey the sort of experiential collapse that occurs through memory, or daydreams in yearning: the close-at-heart placed at a distance. Kept apart from Kenya during the first part of the pandemic, Kariũki could only approximate the sense of “being there” from her other base in the United States. Distortion and echo enact slippages in memory fidelity, thumb pianos and improvised vocal harmonies are strung through the recollective absences, timelines are twisted together, while fadeouts keep all interactions fleeting. Where a collection of extended, unembellished field recordings might have read like an attempt to invoke a simulated inhabiting of these spaces, these mindfully assembled collages generate something more complicated: a dialogue between documented environments and a poetic interpreter, with the sounds of peace places: kenyan memories rising up, smoke-like, through the gap in between.

Kariũki’s voice is a fascinating element; she drifts between four languages (Kiswahili, Kikuyu, Maa, English), occasionally spilling out into choral vowels that might be the groans of longing, shot like hopeful flares into the sky between here and there. On “A Walk Through My Cũcũ’s Farm”, a recording of a visit to her grandmother on Christmas Day 2020 is cradled in hums and gentle mutterings, the memory swaddled like a baby, triggering all manner of poetic extrapolations regarding childhood, old age and fragility at the extremities of palindromic human time. On “Galu”, percussionist Chris O’Leary skims the swill of the ocean as Kariũki improvises a vocal that grows in force, subdividing into harmonies as though the image is sharpening, inhales laced with seawater, drum rhythms solidifying as the memory gains momentum. Within minutes the piece collapses, only capable of feigning reality for so long. Perhaps the most conceptually striking piece is the last one, in which Kariũki’s friend Naila Aroni (who also painted the record’s artwork) records herself walking through Lamu on the Kenyan coast with a close friend. “It doesn’t feel real this place, it just doesn’t…” says one of the voices, fading under the refraction of vibraphone and peripheral howls, with Kariũki’s exquisite arrangement substantiating the spoken sentiment by building a vibrant, rippling, hyperreal landscape all around it.

A Closer Listen

The first major release from Kenyan sound artist Nyokabi Kariũki follows a beguilng pair of videos and a number of works for everything from choir to marimba trio.  peace places: kenyan memories is not only a reflection on her home, but on all homes, echoing the writings of Pico Iyer.  Travel restrictions locked her in Maryland, unable to visit her ancestral land, but by Integrating the instruments of East Africa ~ mbira, kalimba, gyil ~ as well as the Maa, Kikuya and Kiswahili languages, she creates a collage of impressions that feels like home.

“Equator song” is both song and chant, backed by birds and trills, the listener unsure of who is taking the lead.  The harmonies are exquisite, although the composition is anything but linear.  “Galu,” earlier featured in SA Recordings’ Singles Series, preserves a happy memory of wading in the Indian Ocean just before the pandemic hit. “reveling in the secrecy of mornings.”  Field recordings are overladen by Kariũki’s gentle voice:  “I go down / I go down at 6 a.m. / I go down at 6 a.m. to swim.”  It’s hard to avoid intimations of colonialism and outdated gender roles, and the idea that these are stolen moments.  As the music picks up, so does the mood of the singer, until a drum beat breaks through and the tone elevates to joy.  This joy is replicated in another water piece, “Naila’s Peace Place” as the gyil (a type of xylophone) dances upon the lapping waves.  Two friends frolic at the Lamu Coast, one remarking to the other, “Naila!  How happy are you!”

This happiness was deferred for Kariũki until she was finally able to return home in December 2020.  “A Walk Through My Cũcũ’s Farm” is an intensely personal piece, reflecting a visit with her grandmother on Christmas Day.  One need not understand the language to feel the tone of relief.  “Ngurumo, or Feeding Goats Mangoes” celebrates a site-specific task with conversation, choral vocals, thumb piano, and of course, goats, leading a brief outburst of tribal exaltation.

Home is not just where one comes from or lives; home is also a state of mind.  Ironically, distance and deprivation pulled the composer closer to her cultural roots, leading her to try languages in which she was less fluent.  These sonic experiments deepened through sharing, as her recordings sparked an outpouring of stories from her own family, which were woven into later drafts.  The unique nature of the EP, which unfolds like a radio-play, leads us to believe that the composer may eventually produce even more intense and unflinching works in the manner of Matana Roberts, rescuing history from distortion, producing a form of sonic enlightenment.  (Richard Allen)