It’s been six years since ethno-groove band PILI PILI came out with its last album, an elaborate, richly illustrated book with CDs entitled “Post Scriptum” (JARO 4255/56-2) and celebrating the ensemble’s twentieth birthday. It seemed to be a kind of stopping point for Jasper van’t Hof, a “postscript” with a conclusive commentary on everything said undertaken beforehand; soon thereafter he introduced his project HOTLIPS with the horn section of PILI PILI. But Africa and its music simply didn’t let go of the Dutch pianist, keyboarder and eclectic composer with his penchant for romping about in the most heterogeneous musical métiers. The result is a new PILI PILI album, now in an entirely new mood.

The title “Ukuba noma Unkungabi” points to South Africa, where PILI PILI had already found new musical nourishment in 1999 when the band cooperated with the Phikelela Sakhula Zulu Choir. And it was that ensemble which brought forth the singer Smangele Khumalo, PILI PILI’s lead voice on the new CD. Otherwise the new constellation has a different sound, more chamber-music-like as it were, and there’s a reason for that. Jasper van’t Hof expresses it as follows:
“The concept is different. After twenty years with PILI PILI, I didn’t want to repeat myself. In those twenty years, Pili Pili was a concept with African music and African musicians where the African aspect was the point of departure. Now I wanted to turn that around. We’re always using the term World Music, and for us Europeans it’s completely clear: Africa, yeah, that’s foreign. Then we use our own conceptions of music and try to develop a conglomerate of African and European music. And that’s what they call World Music. With the new album, I started in Europe. I didn’t want to take African cultures as my orientation, but a European musical idea as my starting point. In other wor.......
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