Music in Exile’s Jutna turns cultural exchange into seven cuts of joyful firepower

Music in Exile Presents Jutna is Bandcamp Daily’s 22 June Album of the Day, and the story behind it is almost as important as the sound. The Australian non-profit Music in Exile invited six musicians from six countries to meet for the first time on Hydra, Greece, at the Old Carpet Factory recording studio. The lineup includes Australian soul-jazz figure Don Glori, UK jazz multi-instrumentalist Mackwood, Senegalese bandleader Boubacar Gaye, balafon virtuoso Seydou Diabaté, vocalist Sény Samb and Burkinabé ngoni, kora and djembe player Mamadou Dembélé. That setup could have become worthy but stiff. Instead, Bandcamp frames the result as seven addictive jazz-and-folk cuts with Afrobeat drums, West African instruments, psych-folk flavour and serious goodtime firepower. Jutna sounds like collaboration done properly: shared space first, fusion second.

Source: https://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the-day/music-in-exile-jutna-review