MUNTU VALDO

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For the last few years, one-man maverick Muntu Valdo has been wowing audiences across the globe with his ingeniously creative manipulation of technology, innate musicality and generous sincerity. He has toured all over the world. Paris to Douala, WOMAD UK to Mexico, London Jazz Festival to Singapore and back. He has played alongside some of the biggest names of African music new and old, from Staff Benda Bilili to Ali Farka Toure, Keziah Jones to Tony Allen, Richard Bona to Manu Dibango, and forged exciting new collaborations with the likes of cult folk visionary Alasdair Roberts and Damon Albarn’s Africa Express.

Muntu Valdo is a Sawa from the coast of Cameroon in West Africa. His first album Gods & Devils, recorded with his 10-piece band whilst still living in Douala in Cameroon, was described by NME as “a rapturous record that shudders with joy and passion”. Now based in London, he delivers his unique “Sawa Blues” alone with just his guitar and harmonica, using live technology to successfully underpin his powerful melodies with multi-layered loops and mysterious sound textures thanks to a constantly expanding armada of pedals at his feet.

Working increasingly as a solo artist, Muntu is fascinated by an acute awareness of his inseparability from everything and everyone. His desire to explore and understand his place within the complex evolution of peoples, processes & music throughout time and space has brought him to a magic formula. A formula delivered today, in the form of new album, The One & The Many. All ten tracks pay testimony to Muntu’s faith in the power of the individual to harness the power of the many, with all the writing, playing, singing, arranging, producing and recording completed in its entirety by his hand alone.
With his touchingly honest new album, Muntu Valdo seems to have reached a right of passage, successfully pulling together a rich diversity of elements and environments and commanding us to recognise an artist deeply rooted in the riches of his heritage and culture, whilst striving for modernity, open to and pushing towards the future. The One & the Many will be released on Warners in April 2011.