Rango’s music is incredibly tactile. Not only do you feel like you are in the room with this Sudanese/ Egyptian ensemble, but when you put on Bride of Zar you can feel the incredible textures of their unique predominantly acoustic instrumentation.
It’s music based around the Rango, an incredible 190 year old wooden xylophone with bulbous gourd resonators played in a unique percussive style. Only 3 similar instruments are known to still exist and Hassan Bergamon El Nagger is the only known professional player. The ensemble is rounded out with the tanbura, the 5-string electric simsimiyya (lute), an acoustic instrument fitted with a pickup, percussion, shakers (made from insect repellent cans filled with shells) and vocals. The music which originated in the Sudan was transplanted to Egypt, though experienced religious persecution and was driven underground, thought to be extinct by the mid nineties. It’s trance music, a ritual of cleansing from the spirits that manifests itself as a rattling textural stomp. If you’re interested in percussion it will blow your mind. It’s designed to get the body moving, every twang resonates and the Rango sounds like a series of tuned wooden drums, a subtle amplified buzz accompanying each strike, as it weaves around the additional bongos, and percussion. It’s is like nothing else you’ve ever heard, simultaneously primal and elegant, the ensemble utilising multiple quite diverse approaches, at times sounding resolutely traditional, at others seeming to be making slight concessions to the passing of time. The vocals too are quite diverse, often call and response chanting possessing a rich and vibrant religious fervor, sometimes broad and resonant, at others close mic’d and intimate. It really is a unique form of music, you can hear the gravity and depth of feeling in the vocals, and there is a simplicity to the music that is both refreshing and pure, suggesting that this is music for your heart and perhaps your spirit, not necessarily your head.
Bob Baker Fish
