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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Digipack version of The Past is Unpredictable, Only The Future is Certain
Includes unlimited streaming of The Past is Unpredictable, Only the Future is Certain
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Vuma Levin is a multi-award-winning guitar player and one of the leading talents in South African jazz. In September 2021, Vuma Levin achieved a major milestone in his career when he was named the Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz, a coveted award that is widely recognized as the highest honor for an artist in South Africa. His new album, an orchestral undertaking titled The Past is Unpredictable: Only the Future is Certain, is an attempt to create a work that is commensurate with the scale of this achievement.
Recorded across three cities, Johannesburg, Basel and Amsterdam, the album features some of contemporary jazz’s most important young voices, including (but not limited to) Ben van Gelder (Netherlands, Saxophone), Xavi Torres (Piano, Spain), Bokani Dyer (South Africa, Piano), Shane Cooper (South Africa, Bass) and Matthias Spillman (Switzerland, Trumpet).
Conceptually and aesthetically, the project utilizes South African traditional indigenous musical practices and instrumentation as its basis. These are reread and reinterpreted through the lens of contemporary South African jazz, popular music, innovations emerging out of the nascent new music, improvised and jazz scenes in Switzerland and the Netherlands and the orchestral dimensions of Western Art music.
The compositions are based on transcriptions and analysis of pre-colonial, traditional nguni-sotho choral and gourd bow music. Materials extracted from this process were then combined and recombined with the aforementioned genres. As a result, the instrumentation of the ensemble is entirely novel – traditional South African bow, percussion, vocals and finger piano instruments are placed at the center of a jazz quintet, horn trio and string quartet orchestrations. The combination of these influences takes the listener on a sonic journey that traverses the rural areas and hinterlands of the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu Natal, the townships of Soweto and Khayelitsha, the jazz theatres of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Basel, Geneva, Bern, Amsterdam and Rotterdam and the classical concert halls dotted throughout the European capitals.
credits
released May 19, 2023
Vuma Ian Levin - Guitar, Voice (on track 1, 5), Bass (on track 8), Effects, Compositions
Bernard van Rossum - Saxophones (on track, 2, 3, 4)
Xavi Torres - Vicente Piano, Rhodes Keyboard, Organ (on track 1, 2, 3, 4)
Marco Zenini - Acoustic Bass (on track 2, 3, 4, 6)
Jeroen Batterink - Drums
Sisonke Xonti - Saxophones (on track 6, 7)
Bokani Dyer - Piano, Rhodes Keyboards (on track 6, 7)
Benjamin Jephta - Electric Bass (on track 6, 7)
Shane Cooper - Acoustic Bass (on track 1, 5), Sound Design (on track 1)
Cara Stacey - Dende, Makhoyane, Umrhubhe, Nyunga-Nyunga, Budongo, Umtshingo
Tlale Makhene - Emantjomane, Ngoma, Spoken Word
Tijn Wybenga - Arrangements
Pablo Rodriguez - Violin
Oene van Geel - Viola
George Dumitriu - Viola
Paul Sola - Cello
Ben van Gelder - Alto Saxophone (on track 1)
Marta Arpini - Voice (on track 8)
Mixed by Chris Weeda (track 2, 3, 4, 6, 7) and Dave Vettraino (track 1, 5, 8)
Mastered by Dave Cooley
Artwork by Lisolomzi Pikoli
Cover design by Jurgen Meekel
supported by 5 fans who also own “The Past is Unpredictable, Only the Future is Certain”
Finally received the record three months after ordering it and after having Bandcamp help move things along. Great record, poor communication. Kikazaru 🙉
supported by 4 fans who also own “The Past is Unpredictable, Only the Future is Certain”
Whenever and wherever, good are good. Absurdists, go beyond senses and embrace the true values on the other side of rationality. Trample on the nothingness, as it is not the end, but the start of this journey! inshele
South African tenor sax player threads a transportive jazz tapestry alongside talented players from either side of the Atlantic. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 11, 2024