Uganda: Otim Alpha and Leo Palayeng drop Son of Adungu album

Son of Adungu was composed by Ugandan duo Otim Alpha and Leo Palayeng, who are acclaimed for their portrayal of Acholi music from northern Uganda. 

The project is based on the adungu, a traditional string instrument of the Luo ethnic group characterised by its arched harp design with varying numbers of strings, typically tuned diatonically. It consists of a hollow wooden body covered with leather, an arm and wooden dowels connected by nylon strings.

Recorded in Gulu, Uganda, in 2021 during the COVID pandemic, Son of Adungu blends traditional and ritual music that has been passed down from several generations.

Emiliano Motta, a long-time collaborator of Leo Palayeng, who also handles mixing on the LP, arrived in Uganda when the lockdown was partially lifted, to record the album.

“The time we spent recording brought a lot of light in our lives in those dark moments of the pandemic,” Motta said, adding that the tracks on the album played in various major scales, bear a striking resemblance to the son jarocho genre from Mexico. 

“Otim and Leo have been playing these songs for many years based on an oral tradition of learning music from generation to generation, keeping ancestral tunes and melodies alive. So it is a great privilege and pleasure to record them.”

Otim Alpha and Leo Palayeng have toured Europe, bringing the Acholi music to audiences at major festivals such as Bluedot in the UK, Roskilde in Denmark, Onsound in Poland and even the World Music Expo in Finland in 2019.