Singer Bongeziwe Mabandla’s voice, at its highest register, is a singularly plaintive falsetto that articulates so much even before lyrics become a consideration. Over the course of five albums, his voice has increasingly been couched in a synth-heavy, polyglot electro-folk sound, courtesy of producer Tiago Correia-Paulo, who has produced the singer’s last four albums.
This malleable frame accommodates the increasingly bigger venues the artist now plays, while also proving well-suited to radio. And yet, no matter the casing, Bongeziwe’s voice never loses the personability that is its currency. Thanks to its thoughtful sequencing, the album unfolds conceptually in three acts.
To this end, ‘Libambe Lingatshoni’, in which…