Mumford & Sons are very proud to announce details of a new set of
recordings entitled Johannesburg, made with Baaba Maal, Beatenberg and The Very
Best. The songs were recorded in Studio 2 and the Auditorium of the The South
African Broadcasting Corporation, Johannesburg in February over two
all-day-and–all–night sessions and produced by Mumford & Sons and The
Very Best's Swedish electronic music maestro, Johan Hugo. The lead track,There
Will Be Time, went straight to number 1 in South Africa (the band's first
number 1 single) upon release in late January.
Introduce a few of the other key players into this trip. Marcus Mumford:
“The whole thing came together because of Johan (Hugo) really – and
actually they had acted like sonic trailblazers in a lot of ways – marrying
afrobeat rhythms, Esau and Baaba's voices and languages, over Western
songwriting.” Johan Hugo is a well-connected man. He knew the route from A to
C without needing to consult B. Mumford & Sons stuck close to this
guy. Savvy.
So with The Very Best Very Much on board for studio action, and with
Senegal's favourite son Baaba just a phone call away, there had to be a young
South African band that could step up to the plate and make music that connected
the dots.
Beatenberg were the one. They could play, but crucially they had songs too.
Great songs. They'll say now that they're Mumford & Sons fans too, but it
didn't matter. They wanted to hang out. They were smart, and had ideas. They
were willing to give it a shot. Enter into the spirit of this thing.
Good lads.
A studio was booked in Johannesburg. Not a conventional recording studio,
again, that would be far too easy. The South African Broadcasting Corporation
had a room. It had two. Literally, two rooms. A few corridors away, and around
the corner. It was a magnificent building though, all imposing wood panelling
and endless corridors leading to more corridors. It had something a bit
brutalist about it. It had a vibe. The song which opens Johannesburg, There Will
Be Time, is a belter. Tender but not shackled by any sense of restraint. It has
that special inference of yearning that Mumford & Sons do so incredibly
well, and when combining that with the musicianship of Baaba Maal's glorious
crew and his vocals which interweave mesmerisingly with that yearning thing,
you've got something really quite otherworldly. Otherworldly indeed.