Global Music Column – December

Auntie Flo – In My Dreams (I’m a Bird and I’m Free)

Brian d’Souza has always had a wandering ear. Since the 2011 release of his debut single as Auntie Flo, the DJ and producer has released four albums that traverse everything from South African kwaito to Ghanaian highlife, Ugandan pop and Afro-Cuban jazz. In 2020, he launched an online radio station playing exclusively ambient electronics, while his 2022 collaboration with percussionist Sarathy Korwar, Shruti Dances, explored the pulse of Indian classical ragas. On his latest album, In My Dreams (I’m a Bird and I’m Free), d’Souza centres his genre-crossing curiosities on his own Kenyan and Goan heritage, producing his most personal and cohesive record to date.

Recorded over five years across Kenya, New Zealand, India, Brazil and beyond, the 10 tracks on the album are expansive in scope but only run to a slight 35 minutes. The result makes for a dense and detailed listening experience. While opener Nightjar features poet Joshua Idehen expounding on the album’s theme of musical migration over ambient synths, the record soon veers, into propulsive Kenyan disco (Green City), Turkish nursery rhyme melodies (Çatlak Patlak), Brazilian berimbau (Freedom of Birds) and Korean traditional flute (Sandpiper).

Read the review in the Guardian.

[This piece was published on 29/11/24]