Pre-order of TRUE STORY. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
Purchasable with gift card
releases June 14, 2024
£9GBP or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
140 gram classic black LP in a single sleeve cover, with custom M3H / NS printed inner sleeve.
Photographs provided by Malcolm Jiyane
Front cover photograph restored by Patrick Zimanyi
Cover Design by Vusi Hlatywayo
Lacquers cut by Caspar Sutton-Jones
Includes digital pre-order of TRUE STORY.
You get 1 track now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
shipping out on or around June 14, 2024
Purchasable with gift card
£26.99GBPor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Includes digital pre-order of TRUE STORY.
You get 1 track now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
M3H011/NS0069
A New Soil / Mushroom Hour Co-release
With the second album from Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O, TRUE STORY, the trombonist and composer tells a cohesive narrative in which each song stands alone but is still representative of a whole. Without the cheap crutch of a silver lining, the album sonically and thematically captures a picture of what it feels like to live in South Africa, a country replete with the piercing screams of its ubiquitous shanties and overcrowded city hovels. This body of work represents a glimpse into Jiyane’s vast talents, and a further honing of a personal voice that is resolutely with the people.
While the Tree-O’s previous outing UMDALI presented a snapshot of an inspired few days of spontaneity, TRUE STORY is a more deliberately crafted opus. Recorded in Johannesburg over three sessions between December 2020 and April 2021 and further polished for months in post-production sessions in 2023, the record is synesthetically vivid throughout, thanks in part to its thoughtful sequencing.
Again, Jiyane signals at us with homage, suggestive titling and his uncanny ability to fully embody the emotional register of a song. For the artist, TRUE STORY is a metaphorical autobiography, one that through a carefully textured musical palette, transmutes personal loss into a universally relatable statement about the wretched lot of his compatriots.
Backed by the core unit of Ayanda Zalekile (bass), Lungile Kunene (drums), Gontse Makhene (percussion) and Nkosinathi Mathunjwa (piano/keys), along with a slew of contributors, many of them part of Mushroom Hour’s pool of collaborators, the bandleader sounds playful and irreverent as much as he is solemn and anguished. Produced by Curnow and Monti (the production duo behind both SPAZA albums), several of the tracks feature backing vocals from the likes of Nosisi Ngakane, Dumama and Siya Makuzeni (Baby Ngimanzi Wuthando and Global Warning), which enhance the many moods of the record.
Jiyane speaks of the songs as being received from a divine source. His job, he says, was merely to funnel these messages to the public. “I did allow room for the project to shape itself but just made sure to stick to the book of messages that I wanted to send through for this record,” he explains. “So ingoma (song) comes in to tell us that truth.” By managing to stay out of the way of his own creative flow, Jiyane inadvertently grants us privileged access as his audience.
It is no coincidence that the album kicks off with a nod to poet and Sophiatown denizen Don Mattera in Memory is the Weapon, a haunting piano dirge with voices wailing from beyond the earthly realm, and ends off in a similarly unresolved and eerie fashion nine songs down the line in Name It Later. Jiyane is taking stock of lives gone down the drain in the name of freedom. He finds that there are too many to count; enough to recast the Rainbow Nation project as what he refers to as “hell on earth”. But within this foreclosed state of tribulation, the band manages to find pockets of joyful delirium and even fleeting moments of hope.
Sufficiently relaxed and rehearsed, the group offers a lush tapestry of rhythm for Jiyane. He uses it to show off his unsentimentality on the trombone and his bold experiments in which he reaches for deeper expressiveness with his singing voice. Baby Ngimanzi Wuthando is one such example; contrasting oddball lead vocals with beautifully arranged, playful backing vocals. This vocal interplay evokes the mbaqanga of Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, while the loose-limbed yet grounded drumming points to something more contemporary.
MaBrrrrrrrrr’s funky lilt, groovy bassline and charismatic trombone lines hint at the flamboyance of the bubblegum era, capturing the indomitable spirit of its namesake, Brenda Fassie, at the height of her powers.
Dr. Philip Tabane, a dubby, ambient track dominated by a flute ostinato set to the deep drone of a bassline, is the perfect articulation of the malombo sound and its architect’s abiding influence on today’s Black avant-gardists. “He is like a rare plant, or tree,” says Jiyane with a detectable reverence. “His sound, his wisdom … He is like an alien who found his way to earth disguised in human form.”
I Play What I Like is probably the best showcase of drummer Lungile Kunene’s free-flowing and interpretive style of drumming. The track, tinged with a plaintive trombone declaration and a weary vocal response, approximates the emotional toll of the loss of Black Consciousness philosopher Steve Biko (from whom it draws inspiration). It unfolds as if it is on a steady path to a brighter future before its flight is unceremoniously curtailed as if to echo the arc of the leader’s life.
Rounding out the album are Global Warning, a dark lamentation for the earth’s wretched featuring a tapestry of operatic voices; Peter’s Torch, an Afrobeat track celebrating the legacy of the Jamaican reggae star Peter Tosh and South African Jam, a rollicking, swinging jam that would liven up any party. “We know that dance very well,” says Jiyane of the song that inspires unadulterated shebeen-style revelry. “Our history is full of that dance.”
Had poet and Sophiatown denizen Don Mattera lived to hear this album, he would have called the trombonist “an outie … een van ons (one of us)”, as he did when eulogizing alto saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi in Soweto in 1983. For Jiyane gets the weight of responsibility that comes with being at the vanguard of South African jazz, and yet it hasn’t blunted his sense of sonic adventure. In TRUE STORY, Jiyane and his cohorts have their way with elements of this rich lineage, treating each part as the blueprint to an eclectic yet contained sound.
credits
releases June 14, 2024
Credits:
Ayanda Zalekile - electric bass, recorder ("Dr Philip Tabane" and "Name It Later") and backing vocals (“Dr. Philip Tabane” and “Name it Later”)
Dion Monti - keys ("I Play What I Like" and "Name It Later"), synthesizers (“Name it Later”) and shakers (“MaBrrrrrrrrr").
Dumama - backing vocals on "Baby Ngimanzi Wuthando"
Gontse Makhene – percussion and toys
Lungile Kunene - drums
Malcolm Jiyane - trombone, vocals and keys
Nkosinathi Mathunjwa - grand piano, keys (“MaBrrrrrrrrr”) and backing vocals (“Global Warning”)
Nosisi Ngakane - backing vocals on "Baby Ngimanzi Wuthando" and "Global Warning"
Siya Makuzeni - backing vocals on "Baby Ngimanzi Wuthando"
All songs composed by Malcolm Jiyane, except "Dr. Philip Tabane" - composed by Malcolm Jiyane and Ayanda Zalekile
All songs arranged by Malcolm Jiyane, except "Baby Ngimanzi Wuthando" (arranged by Malcolm Jiyane, Dion Monti and Andrew Curnow, and backing vocal arrangements by Siya Makuzeni), “MaBrrrrrrrrr” (arranged by Malcolm Jiyane and Dion Monti) and “Peter’s Torch” (arranged by Malcolm Jiyane and Dion Monti).
Recorded by Oyama Songa at Downtown Studios (Johannesburg) on 8 December and 10 December 2020, and Peter Auret at Sumo Sounds (Johannesburg) on 16 April 2021.
Backing vocals for “Baby Ngimanzi Wuthando” and “Global Warning” recorded by Gavan Eckhart at Soulfire Studios on 11 December 2023.
All other overdub recordings by Dion Monti and Andrew Curnow at M3H HQ in April 2022 and March 2023.
Mixed by Dion Monti
Mastered by Caspar Sutton-Jones
Produced by Monti & Curnow
A&R by Andrew Curnow
Executive Produced by Federico Bolza
With the second album from Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O, TRUE STORY, the trombonist and composer tells a narrative in which each
song stands sonically alone but is still representative of a cohesive whole. This body of work represents a glimpse into Jiyane’s vast talents, and a further honing of a personal voice that is resolutely with the people....more
The albums just keep getting better! This album is filled with inspiration and joy, a pure pleasure to listen to and enjoy. thank you so much for the wax versions once again! kaosskid
