photo: Evgeniy K

Sun Ra once said “space is the place” and it was as if beamed direct from Saturn that Jimi Tenor took to the Cargo stage with the Kabu Kabu afrobeat band as part of the Pulse Festival’s celebration of European music. Shrouded in a silver glittering cape Sun Ra himself would have been proud of, over a fantastic suit that can only be described as looking like it was tailor-made from his grandmother’s curtains Tenor blew his sax hard as Kabu Kabu laid the groove on opener ‘Aligned Planets’.

And the planets seemed to do just that as the band locked into a sound equal parts Lagos and celestial, Tenor alternating between saxophone, keyboard, flute and an instrument of his own making, the Photophone – a light sensitive synth made from a piece of specially exposed black and white film attached to a rotating fan and controlled by a photocell that slots into a custom made ring worn by Tenor. This was utilised to great effect midway through the set during a musical duel between Tenor on the Photophone and percussionist Akinola Famson who matched each phrase produced by the Photophone on his Talking Drum.

photo: Evgeniy K

Other highlights from the set comprised mainly of songs from the recent album 4th Dimension included the Moomin inspired ‘Global Party’ which culminated in an insane ear melting keyboard solo. Tenor, with the instrument strapped on Keytar style, working the pitch bend much to the audiences appreciation. ‘Floating Orange’ put Kabu Kabu’s talents to the fore, drummer Ekow Alabi-Savage showing why he has previously played with the likes of Fela and Manu Dibango. The night wound down with the woozy ‘Beyond The Stars’, which is presumably where Tenor and the band were then beamed to work on more cosmic afro funk jams.

Before taking intergalactic flight, Jimi took the time to answer a few questions:

Shook: So did you enjoy the gig tonight?

Jimi Tenor: Yes it was great, but we had massive problems coming into the country, you know with visas, now the immigration laws in the UK have changed, but we managed to pull some strings with the Embassy so we made it!

S: Well I’m glad you did, it was a great gig! Your latest album with Kabu Kabu ‘4th Dimension’ was recorded mainly live without many overdubs, so it must be fun to play live?

JT: Yes not so many, normally we would do the vocals separately because it’s kind of hard to do them at the same time, but yes we play without headphones, you know just like an open studio, kinda old shool. It’s easier to play really, maybe you know it’s not so hi-fi but for artistic reasons that can be better.

S: What would you say your main influences are in the sound of the album? The most obvious ones to me are Fela and Sun Ra.

JT: Yeah Sun Ra obviously and also you know just whatever records that, ok Fela is very well recorded but some of the stuff like Sun Ra stuff is sometimes well recorded but sometimes quite brutally recorded, you know like just one stereo mic. We did a couple of tracks on the album that I recorded with a ghetto blaster, I think the guys they didn’t even know I was recording and they just played, so this was good! And The next day we went to the house and I transferred the stuff to the computer and they said “hey what’s this?” and I’m like it’s what we did yesterday and they said “Oh right, right!” and it sounds like a field recording or something like that.

S: I hadn’t realised until you said tonight that the Moomins had been an influence for one of the tracks! Do they still show the cartoon in Finland?

JT: Yeah, yeah sometimes, but the influence comes from the original comic books which are much more out there and kinda like hardcore. The cartoon is Japanese-ised or whatever, you know it has bright colours. The original they take these things LBJ, you know like LSD or something! I don’t know if it’s Lyndon B Johnson or whatever I don’t know?! So they take LBJ and they drink whiskey and blah blah so you know it’s quite different.

S: And what are your plans to do next? Will you be recording with Kabu Kabu again? I know you like to move on and try different things

JT: Yeah, we’ve done an album with Tony Allen.

S: Oh yes, as part of the Information Inspiration series on Strut?

JT: Yeah that’s it.

S: How did that go? How was it recording with Tony?

JT: Yeah it was fun, Tony’s a very easy going guy so I had some demos that I played him and then we had like lots of percussion there in the studio, so when he felt like coming, well when we had the basis ready then he came and we cut it, usually in one take you know!

S: And was that with the guys from the band tonight?

JT: Yes and also one additional guy who plays this funny percussion so it’s very deep. You know a bit like tabla but he plays it with a different technique.

S: I look forward to hearing that! And what about the instrument you were playing tonight with the fan and the light? Is that one of your inventions?

JT: Yeah the Photophone.

S: How did you come up with that?

JT: Originally we wanted to make like a little keyboard for DJ’s, like in the same way as you have an organ we drilled holes in this metal disc and then we had pickups to pick up the magnetic flow kinda like, but it was too tricky to adjust the distance from the metal to the Fender Rhodes pickup so we thought maybe it’s better to do it with a light, because that time I was working with film and optical sounds. The optical sounds seemed to be easier to deal with, so that’s what we did.

S: I thought the battle between the Photophone and the Talking Drum was an honourable draw!

JT: (laughing) Today yes, but you never know!