Fun with Phonemes

Since last week’s zungu-fest, I’ve had my eyes peeled for similar (semi-)Swahili utterances. And whattaya know, scanning the tracklist for Taliesin’s Apricity mix (which I recommend you listen to — it was a nice soundtrack this past Wednesday, when December actually felt like April), I noticed that the jumpoff track was by a group called NGUZUNGUZU, so of course, I got quite curious.

Given that the track was a remix by the homie, Kingdom, I wrote and asked him about NGUZUNGUZU, so he pointed me to their MySpace page and gave me an email address. Easy as that.

Here’s their reply; I’m afraid it may disappoint some of us Swahili-seeking conspiracy theorists, but it’s an interesting bit of suggestive sonic overlap —

We named ourselves NGUZUNGUZU after a type of wooden canoe prow carving from the Solomon Islands. We liked the name firstly for its phonetics,when repeated rapidly it sounds like a digeridoo. And the idea of this guiding figure on our craft of sonic explorations. Something like a beacon, a navigational tool, a compass that points us in various directions.

Their music sounds nothing like Yellowman or canoes, but I like it — all sorts of sounds and styles streaming into each other.