Pierre Kwenders - Makanda at The End of Space, the Beginning of Time (2017)

Pierre Kwenders’ new album, Makanda at the End of Space, the Beginning of Time, is steeped in love.

The totemic belonging of family, identity, and shared history of bodies that carry the same beats and rhythms. The unhinged joy of intimacy, and the sensation of truly being seen by someone whose witness you’ve longed for. The warm safety you’ve finally nurtured inside yourself, a radical act of solitude and recognition and acceptance. The kind of love that makes you free, that gives you courage.

“‘Makanda’ means 'strength,' and I dedicate the album to my mom, grandma and aunt, three women who have been very important in my life and made me who I am,” Kwenders says, over the phone from his home base in Montreal.

It’s a continued homage, since Pierre Kwenders itself isn’t just a stage name, but the name of his grandfather as well. On Makanda at the End of Space, the Beginning of Time, Kwenders isn’t just a time traveler, slipping backwards and forwards or zigzagging through countries and continents. His music captures life in a circle, a belief that there is no beginning or end, no race to some imagined victory, but that everything is connected.

Congolese rhumba mixing with electronic synths alongside sax solos and brass flourishes, and all 11 songs on the record sung or rapped in either Lingala, French, English or Shona. Every track contains its own atmosphere, even though they share related landscapes, be it the spacey, Afro-futurist title track, or the lush “La La Love” and the equally shimmering "Zonga." Two standout songs close out the record. “Tsvarakadenga” is unnervingly brilliant, a soaring track that feels like shouting into a canyon and the wind catches your voice and tosses it back at you. “WTFU” is a foot-stomping, political dance party that’s rife with attitude and action. Recorded in Seattle with Shabazz Palace’s Tendai Baba Maraire, Kwenders has crafted something utterly unique with Makanda because it’s so deeply rooted in his circle.

Tracklist:

01 - Bittersweet Mornings (feat. Fly Guy Dai)
02 - Woods of Solitude
03 - La La Love (feat. Kae Sun & Tanyaradzwa)
04 - Makanda (feat. Ish aka Palaceer Lazaro & SassyBlack)
05 - Rendezvous
06 - Sexus Plexus Nexus
07 - Welele
08 - Zonga (feat. Tanyaradzwa)
09 - Tuba Tuba
10 - Tsvarakadenga
11 - WTFU