{"id":105483,"date":"2022-04-27T12:23:04","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T10:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/?p=105483"},"modified":"2022-04-27T12:46:23","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T10:46:23","slug":"afrorack-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/afrorack-album\/","title":{"rendered":"The Afrorack, first experiments on DIY modular synthesizers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Back in 2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/afrorack\/\">an article<\/a> was dedicated to Brian Bamanya\u2019s Afrorack, Africa\u2019s first DIY modular synthesizer. The inventor is now about to release his first album named after his creation via Ugandan label Hakuna Kulala.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Spring 2018. Bryan Bamanya began looking in Kamapala\u2019s repair shops for the pieces that would allow him to build the first African modular synthesizer. To do so, Bamanya relied on tutorials and circuit diagrams found on the Internet. Thanks to his impressive resourcefulness, he managed to beget the Afrorack. His success didn\u2019t stop there, the young inventor went on to perform at the Atlas Electronic Festival in Marrakech, Morocco and at the Nyege Nyege Festival in Jinja, Uganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Behind the Afrorack is a desire to break with American and European and to reconnect with his African roots. \u201c<em>Our heritage does not come from Detroit, Chicago or Berlin \u2013 but from our own musical traditions. I am convinced that the next electronic music revolution will take place in Africa<\/em>,\u201d he said with confidence back in 2019. Indeed, the current synthesizers sold on the market are mostly American or German. Besides their exorbitant price and their scarcity in Uganda, Bamyana rejects industrial tools. \u201c<em>The charm of DIY lies in its power of emancipation: you are able to build yourself an instrument so you are able to create music. I find it very anti-consumerist and I like that a lot<\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=4249579788\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hakunakulala.bandcamp.com\/album\/the-afrorack\">The Afrorack by Afrorack<\/a><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>In his debut album <em>The<\/em> <em>Afrorack, <\/em>the name of which is a nod to his invention, Bamanya introduces polyrhythmic structures found in some African musical traditions thanks to his synth sequencer. It is especially noticeable in \u201cAfrican Drum Machine&#8221;. Different layers of sounds can be distinguished, between the oscillators and the drums, to give shape to hypnotic new rhythms. It most certainly is the result of Bamanya\u2019s work on algorithmic music and euclidean rhythms he already mentioned back in 2019. In \u201cOsc\u201d, this same frenetic rhythmic intensity typical to East Africa\u2019s sounds can be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/hakunakulala.bandcamp.com\/album\/the-afrorack\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Afrorack<\/em><\/a> out on May 27th via Hakuna Kulala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Listen to \u201cOsc\u201d in our afro + club playlist on <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/38btMIbD4lYEsPbMrN9Bjz?si=FbbbIxauTjWsf3HwGUiFVQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Spotify<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deezer.com\/fr\/playlist\/3244743002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Deezer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Afrorack : le corps de la machine (interview et live session)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NAEGwCaTaDw?start=1&#038;feature=oembed&#038;autoplay=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>Afrorack: the body to the machine (interview &amp; live session)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1010\" height=\"1010\" src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/afrorack-1010x1010.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-105477\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 2019, an article was dedicated to Brian Bamanya\u2019s Afrorack, Africa\u2019s first DIY modular synthesizer. The inventor is now about to release his first album named after his creation via Ugandan label Hakuna Kulala. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":105478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3944],"tags":[4096,33333],"location":[8184],"yst_prominent_words":[8403,8509,21995,15869,24192,20099,18465,12928,28610],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105483"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=105483"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=105483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}