Teranga

Description

Teranga, the last album of the Wau Wau Collectif trilogy, takes its name from the Wolof word that expresses welcome, hospitality, and shared encounter. A title that could not be more appropriate for a project born from meeting. It all started in 2018 in the village of Toubab Dialaw, where the two musicians Arouna Kane and Karl-Jonas Winquist conceived the idea. Over the years, the project evolved, with the two producers exchanging files on WhatsApp and integrating their network of friends and colleagues into what would become the Wau Wau Collectif, leading to Yaral Sa Doom (2021) and then Mariage (2022). Teranga, the third and final part of the trilogy, was finalized and mixed during the band's first live tour, a five-week journey across Europe with "three Swedes, three Senegalese, and a French driver, a beautiful mess of languages," explains Karl-Jonas. The album was composed and performed with no less than 26 musicians and lyricists playing an impressive range of instruments: balafon, ngoni, calabash, violin, cello, saxophone, and omnicord. The resulting sound is hard to place, both dreamy and meditative, imbued with an organic, anachronistic soul, and looking towards the future. "Oh, Africa" could feature on a classic reissue with its almost Turkish guitar riff, while "100 ans," their first live studio recording, evokes the Amadou and Mariam of the early 2000s. As the chapter of the trilogy closes, Karl-Jonas insists: this may just be the beginning.