Infatuation, love, desire and so many other alike emotions, have often been punctuated by the feeling of butterflies. A flutter within your gut, that discombobulates even your sixth sense (gut feelings) and leaves you vulnerable. Often the start of something but yet it can be the beginning of a journey that ends in regret.
While rather succinct, Shashl’s Butterflies EP captures the feeling of butterflies and the emotions that surround them (love and heartbreak) with rhythmic eloquence. Yet when Shashl named her EP Butterflies, this wasn’t quite the intention. She saw that name as being a representation of how the project is a sonic metamorphosis in it’s storytelling.
Some would call it reach but if you’re with me, then you can see that the EP title is easily a double entendre.
For a gifted vocalist, Shashl has often stumbled in terms of finding the sound that defines her. Well stumbled might be too strong a word, but her craft has often wandered across a landscape of diverse genres.
While wandering in itself is not wrong, for Shashl this has sometimes led to some experiments that didn’t turn out quite right. But listening to Butterflies, it feels like she’s finally found a place she feels at home. The project is a vibrant exploration of contemporary Afro pop, centred around the subject of love.
Whether it’s the realisation of the need for more self love (“Watch Me”), the desire to dive head first into love (“Nemoyo”), or the emotive ode to hope (“Alright”), Butterflies feels deeply personal. This is something that feeds it’s relatability far beyond it’s rhythmic composition.
I love Watch Me‘s subtle reggae feel, the vibrant Afrobeats nature of Nemoyo, the heavy bass line of Access and the sungura influenced guitar of Alright (Dalla has the sound of popiano but I feel like the EP could’ve done without it). Butterflies is a metamorphosis of sound and storytelling. Twice as good as Shashl’s last EP, and strong foot forward on the back of the hit single Deepisa.
Butterflies might be the moment Shashl’s been waiting for, to make more than just waves but become a permanent fixture on Zimbabwe’s musical landscape.
