by ERIN MACLEOD

In 1979, Belgium’s Vincent Kunis switched on Radio France and heard whistles and song colliding with dizzying, crashing rhythms. Likembes (thumb pianos) had been hooked up to makeshift amplifiers and speakers carefully culled together from old car parts and other scraps. A mishmash of metal and other noisemaking materials made up the rhythm section. Ten years later, he decided to track down this African group, known as Konono No. 1. Kunis found bandleader Mingiedi and launched a plan to record the outfit and release it on his label, Crammed. What ended up being the first disc in the Congotronics series has fascinated music fans worldwide. Before Konono No. 1 takes the Jazz Fest by storm, the Mirror got some perspective from Kunis.

Mirror: What drove you to seek out Konono No.1?

Vincent Kunis: I already had some experience with modern Congolese music. I had been there in ’71 and stayed one week in Kinshasa. I heard all sorts of stuff—tradi-modern music. I also played a lot with Congolese artists such as Luambo Franco and OK Jazz and Koffi Olomide. So this led me to be sensitive to Congolese music in general.

M: Mingiedi has said that he needed to amplify his likembe to compete with city noise. What do you think about this pragmatic need to connect traditional music with technology?

VK: They take equipment and circumvent it to get a new sound, a new way of playing the music. Now they are opening up to new sounds, new possibilities. They never had a proper P.A. before, and it’s a question of balancing the ugly, dirty sounds they always had with more comfortable sounds. Also, they never had good bass amplification. It’s always a bit tinny, happening in the mid-treble. They discovered sub-bass and have been getting into it, exploiting it.

Object lessons

M: How important do you think it is to have an understanding of the place, the context in which music is created?

VK: The more music travels, the more it needs to state where it comes from. People tell me about the [Congotronics 2] DVD, that they understand the music so much better after they saw the pictures. It suddenly makes sense, you know? Some sounds, like the drums, are really complicated, but as soon as you see the dancer dancing to it, you see that it is a very, very rigorous and skillful affair, and you just get captivated.

M: With the positive things about technology, there must also be a negative side.

VK: Of course, there’s going to be more experimentation, and there’s going to be more challenge from that. Maybe they’ve never thought of their sound as an object to watch, to compare to others. They see now and are quite conscious of textures of sounds in records they hear [in Europe]. They know that their distortion is unique. I’m there to talk music, to propose sounds, to propose solutions. The fact that I have the computer and I can mix all the time with them means the object is in the making and the question is, what do they want it to sound like? It’s not a question of technology versus tradition. It is just making a musical object that works.

Bringing it home

M: Konono No.1 has been around for quite some time and, apparently, is seen as passé. What do you think about new music coming out of the Congo?

VK: I wouldn’t want to describe it, actually. It seems to be quite stagnant at the moment. I’ve heard there is a hip hop scene growing. Most of the people just play music with what they have. They invent instruments in the backyard, and anything goes. It is a very, very poor situation in Kinshasa. I’ve been in Bamako [in Mali]—it looks like Switzerland to me, compared to Congo.

M: Does the international popularity of the Congotronics series get back to the Congo?

VK: Maybe not now, maybe later. I think the new generation is bound to like this sound very much. Because it is really close to what hip hop or dance music sounds like when you have nothing at all but chairs and brooms and stuff like that to hit on. This music is unique in the world and they are going to incorporate it, I am sure. I hope so, anyway!

At le Spectrum on Friday, July 7, 6 p.m., $26.50

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