Corey Mwamba

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a sense of grounding

The reason why I'm sharing it now is that I was re-reading it and it sparked off another thought. Nat Birchall was all over the original discussion—he's a genius when it comes to knowing about Jamaican music, and it was great to read his thoughts about it. Head to Facebook to read it in full. I'll just quote what I originally put.

One of the great things about working in Corey Mwamba | Dave Kane | Joshua Blackmore is the associative links Dave, Joshua and I are able to create with our combined influences, without rehearsal or discussion. Because the listening of those guys is just so good, it sometimes leads to things that relate directly to sounds that I have learned.

As with many Black British musicians, I have a "sense of grounding" in Caribbean music [this isn't the same as actually being grounded in that music].

Specifically, the folk music of Jamaica [bruckins, nyabinghi, old Hindustani chants, dinki mini, et al.] is something that I try to weave into my work, without making it too obvious or laboured.

I don't know if Dave or Josh know about that, because we've never discussed it. But in the piece which I first titled "arawak" [it doesn't really have a name], we slip into a section [at about 8 minutes] which to my ears sounds like it was completely influenced by older Caribbean music.

I'm thinking quite specifically about the sense of grounding: it's not the thing itself, but an authentic association. There's something unforced [dare I say "unlearned"?] about an authentic association that you just don't get when you hear someone who's learned how to do something. It's very hard for me to define—but I'm just placing a marker on my site; and since quite a few of you are very clever, maybe you can help!

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