Executive production and A&R - Laurent Bizot
Artwork - Jérôme Witz
Design - Element(s)
1. Imini Yesithembiso 3’39
2. Green to Gold 3’14
3. Leitlho Laboraro 3’40
4. Off the Ground 2’44
5. Letters From the Sea 4’07
6. Summer in December 2’40
7. Izinto Zobomi 3’37
8. Time Against the World 2’53
9. Refuge 3’39
Tubatsi Mpho Moloi - Vocals, flute, mbira
Msaki - Vocals
Clément Petit - Cello, synths
Frédéric Soulard - Synths
Recorded by Frédéric Soulard at Jazzworx, Johannesburg, SA, 9-11 and 14-17th June 2021, assisted by Gregory Nottingham, and by Thando Magwaza on 12-15th January 2023,
Mixed by Frédéric Soulard at Studio Méchant, Paris, France
Mastered by Alexis Bardinet at Globe Audio Mastering, France, January 13th, 2024
Produced by Frédéric Soulard and Clément Petit
Imini Yesithembiso, Refuge - Written by Msaki & Tubatsi Mpho Moloi, composed by Msaki and Clément Petit
Izinto Zobomi, Green to Gold, Off the Ground - Written and composed by Msaki, Tubatsi Mpho Moloi and Clément Petit
Time Against the World, Letters From the Sea - Written by Msaki, Tubatsi Mpho Moloi, and Clément Petit, composed by Clément Petit
Leitlho Laboraro - Written by Tubatsi Mpho Moloi, composed by Tubatsi Mpho Moloi and Clément Petit
Summer in December - Composed by Clément Petit & Frédéric Soulard
Arrangements by Clément Petit, except Summer in December by Frédéric Soulard
Published by Nø Førmat!
(P) et © 2024, Nø Førmat!
A year after the release of their album Synthetic Hearts, Msaki and Tubatsi return with the second volume of the project.
Driven by the rhythmic and versatile cello of Clément Petit, the two renowned South African voices continue their journey elsewhere, to a place where hearts, experiences, and sounds meet, evolve, and transform over the nine tracks of this second volume, just as inventive, experimental, playful, and complex as the first.
Piling up voices and instruments, without geographical or stylistic barriers, in an atmosphere that is both minimalist and lush, SH II allows itself even more freedom and digressions, ranging from spoken word to songs with melodies reminiscent of 90s pop. And the sound gives itself more willingly to synthetic incursions, giving even more relief to its folk and acoustic side.
It should be remembered that the three artists crossed paths on Urban Village's album Udondolo, where Clément Petit was invited on the track uBaba, and Msaki on Umhlaba Wonke. In Synthetic Hearts, they broaden the scope of their collaboration, as the three artists' discographies indeed show their ability to wander between musical genres.
Born in East London, South Africa, self-described “songcatcher” Msaki moves across electronic dance, folk, pop and amapiano with ease – rooting her sound in heartfelt lyrics that express the entangled personal and political. Msaki’s sophomore album ‘Platinumb Heart’ (2021), won her both Female Artist of the Year and Best Adult Contemporary Album at the 2022 South African Music Awards, and she’s also known for multiple chart- topping collaborations (Black Coffee, Diplo, Prince Kaybee, Sun-El Musician...). Similarly, as part of the four-piece collective Urban Village, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Tubatsi Mpho Moloi’s music digs into the strata of the post-apartheid reality, grounding itself in the quotidian experiences of township life in Soweto and moving across and beyond folk, rock, mbaqanga and maskandi and more.
Msaki and Moloi’s folk sensibilities are present on ‘Synthetic Hearts’, even as it too defies easy categorisation, mixing live and electronic elements, as Petit teases out distinct textures from his cello. Raised in a diverse, community-based Parisian banlieu, Petit’s approach reflects his early immersion in Afro-American, Caribbean and electronic music, vast experience in contemporary and improvised music, and quest to continually reinvent instruments, rewrite the rules and find new musical languages. “He doesn’t treat the cello like a classical cellist”, Msaki notes.
Recorded at Jazzworx, Johannesburg and co-produced by Petit and Frédéric Soulard, it’s a body of work that intentionally reveals the inescapable brokenness at the heart of what it means to be human, and the inescapable risk of what it means to love. The songs on the album, enquire, examine and implore in their unadorned disclosures.
The album is both introspective and conversational – disentangling emotions held within, and considering what is shared and private in the messiness of our relationships with ourselves and others. The album “speaks about having an equal responsibility to look after each other” and questions how “we express feelings of love towards each one another”, Moloi explains. Love, longing, confusion, sorrow and despondency, are opened up and negotiated. The themes of the album echo the process of its creation, as two voices and three artists find ways to balance their sounds, find each other, compromise and journey alongside each other in these songs.
‘Synthetic Hearts’ began with ideas from Petit’s archives, with Msaki and Moloi selecting the songs that resonated, to forge something new together over a week-long residency in April 2021. Composed at Nirox Sculpture Park, just outside Johannesburg, the music is a witness to the changing seasons– literally, as they sing of leaves turning colour in ‘Green to Gold ’, and in life too, as relationships move in and out of ease across the album. Created in an organic and unprescribed process, the music naturally moved towards explorations of love’s knotty realities, in what they describe as a productive and unlaboured creative process.
Msaki describes how the music is coloured through the “three paintbrushes” of their approaches. With minimalistic production and an embrace of space, she adds that “restriction [became] a beautiful way to give the project a language”.
This sense of revelation is threaded through ‘Synthetic Hearts’, sometimes as the slow, sore sound of a heart about to break. At other times, it lays bare the glistening hope of romance’s thrilling beginnings, or simply promises only the present moment, and nothing more. But at its core, it’s a willingness to love, through it all, that is the emotional centre of the album.
These are not clear love songs, sticky with sentiment. The tracks on ‘Synthetic Hearts’ twist and shift in the thorny complexities of the feeling instead. “It feels like the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning, it’s not very clear. But there are a lot of invitations, and there’s a lot of vulnerability, which is probably reflective of where we were as well”, Msaki says.
Blending voices, styles and experiences, Synthetic Hearts pulses with the immense respect and appreciation the three artists have for each other, finding musical chemistry in the willingness to let go and simply be: in music, just as in love.
