Tumi Mogorosi crafts “spiritualised choral music” on Group Theory

Recorded with a nine-person choir.

South African drummer and composer Tumi Mogorosi is releasing a new album, called Group Theory: Black Music, via Mushroom Hour Half Hour / New Soil this July.

In order to summon the album’s “deep-hued modal grooves”, Mogorosi used a nine-person choir alongside an instrumental group.

“There’s this idea of mass, of a group of people gathering, which has a political implication,” explains Mogorosi.

“The operatic voice has both a presence, and a capacity to scream, a capacity for affect. The instrumental group can sustain the intensity of that affect, and the chorus can go beyond improvisation, toward communal melodies that everyone can be a part of.”

Group Theory: Black Music follows Mushroom Hour Half Hour’s release of Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O’s UMDALI album.

Pre-order Group Theory: Black Music from Bandcamp in advance of its 8th July release; check out the artwork and tracklist below.

Tracklist:

1. Wadada
2. The Fall
3. Panic Manic
4. 3:15 (Where it’s Darkest) (feat. Andile Yenana)
5. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (feat. Andile Yenana & Siya Mthembu)
6. Walk with Me
7. At the Limit of the Speakable
8. Mmama
9. Thaba Bosiu (feat. Andile Yenana)
10. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (feat. Gabi Motuba)
11. Where are the Keys? (feat. Andile Yenana & Lesego Rampolokeng)

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Photo by: Andile Buka