Initiated by musician and artist Jonathan Saldhana (HHY and the Macumbas) during his Nyege Nyege residency in 2018, HHY and The Kampala Unit is an exploration of a fresh, yet submerse territory in music mixing up dub, techno, traditional drumming and elements of trance. An international trio featuring Saldhana on electronics and production and fierce trumpet player and ghetto activist Florence Lugemwa recently joined by Sekelembele (Fulu Muziki) on hybrid drums.

Properly a feast for the eye and the ear, HHY and The Kampala Unit lures us into a layered synaesthetic cosmogony soaked in oneiric sci-fi atmosphere. Physical in its tactility and effect and highly evocative, their music is a gorgeous blending of cerebral virtuosity, cosmic creativity, raw energy and visceral sensuality that is majestically sculpted with haunting marching sounds, mutating percussive rhythms, variations and reprises against cascading electronics and rich, technicolor textures. A dramatic intensity builds up over time with cinematic passages generating tension between rupture and stability, subtext and hyperrealism. Mesmerising and infectious.

Their debut album "Lithium Blast" is due to release later this year on Nyege Nyege Tapes.


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The Guardian | ‘Being brilliant is how you survive’: the musician drumming up ambition in Kampala’s slums