- What do we think of when we talk about African music? Africans have natural rhythm, goes the old racial stereotype. Other times we may think of music from that continent only as an ethnographic cultural experience, not as entertainment. Or we label as “authentic” African music only that which uses traditional non-European instruments and styles.
All these things are examples of “othering”, a process all humans are prone to and music fans certainly not immune. The problem with othering is not just that it reduces complex individuals to simple theoretical ideas, it is that in doing so we obscure the connections we share with people and musicians who are in many respects like us.
Duma are an extreme metal band from Nairobi, Kenya. Their self-titled debut album, out on the wonderful Ugandan based experimental label Nyege Nyege Tapes, is one that can burst through those old tropes.
Which is not to say that Duma sound like your average Western rock’n’roll band, which they certainly don’t. But they also are not the typical Western idea of what East African music should sound like, instead speaking in the universal language of nightmarish screams, feedback noise and jackhammer drumming.
Early exponents of industrial music, like Throbbing Gristle and John Foxx, came from the grey industrial localities on the fringes of Western capitalism, and their music was a self-stated attempt to capture not the glossy aesthetics of the department store and advertising promo, but the sounds and sights of the factory and the mine - the unpleasant underside of the consumerist dream. In doing so, like their inspiration JG Ballard, they were also attempting to evoke the duality of human nature - not all pretty melodies and love songs, but also the shadow side that lurks within us all and is capable of doing harm, of hating, of being ugly. It was music that was difficult to listen to, yet honestly depicted our lives and our society when viewed from all sides.
Many of us would like to consider the third world as a more innocent place immune from all this, but that of course is not the reality. Far from the myth of the noble savage; the developing world is somewhere all aspects of human nature are present, and the place where more and more of our industrial production and waste dumping actually goes on, especially as the quest for low wages and environmental standards drives industrial production away from the Western world to new locations.
Duma, with their sheets of noise and relentless jackhammer drumming, bring to mind more than anything the sounds of a factory. They are making, as Throbbing Gristle would say, “industrial music for industrial people”. It’s somewhat unpleasant to listen to, but it may be that we in the Western world, so removed now from the actual production of our endless consumer goods, need a reminder of what that process sounds like.
The other side of Duma’s sound, the tortured screams, is another virtue that I think extreme music has always offered. This is music that sounds not like the human experience at its best - falling in love or ennobled by grand ideals, but as it is. Conflicted, hurting, ugly, flawed humans inhabiting a messed up world.
Is there likely to be a mass audience for industrial noise music from Kenya? Probably not. But Duma have made an intriguing record; one that can remind us of those universal themes that make us all human - the way our consumption is destroying the planet, and the fact we must always grapple with the facts of human suffering, our potential for evil, and the bleak meaninglessness of existence. From Nairobi to Brisbane and all around the world, this is our shared bond of common humanity.
- Andy Paine.