EQUATOR SONG — debut SINGLE RELEASE from peace places: kenyan memories

via SA Recordings

Support on Bandcamp or SA’s Product Store

The track is part of an EP project called ‘peace places: kenyan memories’, where each track focuses on several places at home that gave me peace and similarly feature field recordings from each respective place.

On a journey through the county of Laikipia, Kenya, I’d recorded some weaverbirds in a nearby tree, whose vibrant yellow feathers seemed, in a way, a visual juxtaposition to the dissonance of their song. While on this land, where the equator stretches through, I also found myself pondering over another juxtaposition between harmony and disharmony — my own feelings of connection, but also disconnect, to the land, my lineage, and our languages. Wanting to acknowledge the discomfort of expressing in languages that I do not speak, I start in English — “you’ll find my soul on someone’s tongue” — before shifting to Kiswahili. But by the song’s end, hoping that I’ve made peace with this discomfort, I turn to the language of Maa, for it is preserved in the meaning of the name I carry. Steadily, I count in this unfamiliar tongue, tracing the words that many in Laikipia county speak; and perhaps also tracing the words that my ancestors may have spoken.

Stream on Spotify, Apple Music, and more

Full Credits: Written, produced & performed by Nyokabi Kariuki (with some Kiswahili Translation Assistance from Marundu Muturi) / MIxed by Madeleine Flieger / Mastered by Enyang Ha / Track recorded in Potomac, Maryland with Field recordings taken in Nanyuki, Kenya, with additional Field recording (provided by Kuki Njeru, featuring the voice of Saitima Sayore) taken in Narok, Kenya / Released by SA Recordings on January 26th, 2022.

Reviews

“An extraordinarily beautiful piece of music.” — Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC 6 Music (during the radio premiere of the song)

"As she positions herself in the spaces between knowing and unknowing, Kariuki spotlights the unexpected moments of stark beauty and staggering clarity found in these gray places." — Allison Hussey, Pitchfork

“"Her latest offering, “Equator Song” is truly serene, blending nature sounds with her own veritably majestic voice and other subtle sounds....The effect is genuinely mesmerizing." — Chase McMullen, Beats per Minute