What is the sound of a botanical garden? Is it the peace and serenity that comes from being enveloped in nature at its most colourful? The ambient sounds that include the flutter of wings, the tweeting of birds or the chatter of bugs just at the edges of human hearing? The rejuvenation of the spirit and the healing nature brings?
These questions are what Zakes Bantwini and Skye Wanda answer in synth and mellifluous vocals, guided by intentionality. A bouquet of trance, shrubs of ambient textures and branches of the soulful.
Echoes Of Botanical Gardens brings together a Grammy Award winning African dance music maestro and a vocalist entrenched in the genre. Yet these are not just mere collaborators but artists who share a musical connection. The seeds of musical synergy previously showcased on the collaboration “Girl in the Mirror,” bloom at the height of their musical spring on this project.
For Zakes it is the unexpected, a pivot from the infectious upbeat rhythms that have earned him a name across the globe, but a soundscape that fits right into Skye Wanda’s wheelhouse. Ignored are past successes and emerging trends, with the desire to create something resonant rising to the fore.
The project is ambient yet not simply music that falls into the background, but a sound that occupies its desired space. Within its tales of love and spirituality, it centres healing. The cast of collaborators includes Joseph Dube, Drega, Marco Pex, Jnr SA and Black Rhythm, but they are only a helping hand to the picture Bantwini and Wanda aim to paint.
“Focus” is a journey of self, solitude and introspection. It is dedicated to getting right within and it has a message perfectly paired with its sonics. “Never Meant For Me” and “Feel The Same” offer up tales of a complicated love, and then a step after them “Mina Nawe” simplifies it. God is exulted in the prayers “Phezulu” and “Wena Baba,” that offer up a beautiful message of a grounded faith.
Echoes Of Botanical Gardens is ultimately a journey to finding pace. A soundtrack for finding healing that is gentle on the ear but calls on us to feel and to feel deeply. It is not music meant to climb the dance music charts or to light up the dance floor, but instead it is intimate and seeks a connection. There is something that Zakes Bantwini and Skye have found in music together, and they want us to find that too.
The project is by no means perfect but achieves a human connection that stands out, at a time when art has become something we out source to algorithms.
House rating: 7.7/10
