Chicago-based duo Mind Maintenance discuss their devotional new album for Drag City Records with Gareth Thompson
Mind Maintenance is comprised of Joshua Abrams playing guimbri (three-stringed lute) and Chad Taylor on mbira (board with metal prongs). Each instrument has distant origins in the Gnawa population of Northwest Africa and is widely used in healing or trance ceremonies. The duo’s new album is an unadorned work featuring nine pieces performed spaciously, where the players and their instruments merge in a rhapsody of thunking and thrumming. Mind Maintenance reminds us that Africa’s melodic traditions are as vital as its rhythmic legacy. Deep emotions may be stirred for those who know how to listen.
You first worked together back in the 90s; what has kept you attuned as artists?
Chad Taylor: The music has a way of taking care of you, if you take care of it. It sounds corny and sentimental, but it’s been the story of my life. I remember back in 1997, Joshua helped me move from NYC back to Chicago. NYC just wasn’t working for me. I had a day job and gigs almost every night of the week, but I still couldn’t pay my bills. Joshua let me move into his apartment in Andersonville. After a while I was frustrated because I found myself working another day job I didn’t enjoy. Joshua was like, “Just quit and play music full-time.” It was a hard decision, but I followed his advice and I’ve never worked another day job since. That said, I know some great musicians who do have full-time day jobs. There’s a lot of different paths you can take to being an artist. Your success shouldn’t be determined by others, but by your own accord.
Joshua Abrams: Shared interest and experience. Mind maintenance.
Mind Maintenance is an intriguing project name. Does it imply the safeguarding of our mental health?
CT: It has many implications, with safeguarding mental health being one of them. It also implies mental awareness and also, perhaps, questioning the status quo. How does one exercise the mind? Is it about continuously learning new things, or is it about unlearning all the things you already know?
JA: That could be an aspect. I think music is a very powerful medium that affects our sense of timing and place within ourselves and the world.
Were the album tracks worked out through improv, or did you bring in composed motifs?
CT: I think the best way to explain it is that we were composing in real time. However, to get to that point we spent a good while practicing and learning by trial and error. For me, a big challenge was finding which mbira tunings worked well with the guimbri.
JA: Some of the music was composed in the moment, other pieces were developed in rehearsals, while some of it was pre-existing music, rearranged for the duo. Sometimes we worked on the macro elements of the sound as well as the intervallic elements. Sometimes we worked towards achieving balance between the two instruments, as well as between stasis and change.
Presumably you’d like it to be heard as one whole experience?
CT: Correct, although each track can stand on its own.
JA: The record is mostly conceived to flow into itself. That said I think the individual pieces hold up as isolated tracks too.
Were your interests in the guimbri and mbira sparked by their use in sacred traditions?
CT: The first time I heard the mbira it was being played by the bassist Steve Neil who performed it with Pharoah Sanders. Steve later explained to me where he learned to play it and about traditional mbira music. He also outlined the difference between a kalimba and an mbira. The kalimba is a modern instrument, developed in the 1920s to be a user-friendly and Americanized adaptation of the nyunga nyunga mbira. The mbira is an ancient instrument, thousands of years old, played by the Shona people of Zimbabwe. There are four types of mbira – Matape, Nhare, Njari, Nyunga Nyunga – and the most common mbira that I play, the mbira dzavadzimu.
JA: I became interested in both instruments because of their sounds.
How difficult are your instruments to record?
CT: It can be challenging. I’ve used contact mics in the past and also custom built-in DIs. However, I’ve discovered the best sound from the instrument is achieved by miking it from underneath with a condenser mic.
JA: Both instruments present unique challenges for recording and at times can work well with contact mics or pickups. That said, I think microphones are often the best option and that is how we recorded this album. I think Cooper Crain did a beautiful job capturing and blending both instruments’ tones.
Can you have open tunings or do both instruments use a standard one?
CT: There are many different tunings for the mbira. These predate western musical theory. So, although they sound similar to western scales, they are independent from them. Unlike a kalimba, each mbira is fixed to a specific tuning. If you want a different tuning then you use a different mbira. The specific tuning system I practice and study has seven different tunings. It was developed and taught to me by my teacher Garikayi Tirikoti.
JA: The guimbri is a three-stringed lute. I usually tune it to Eb2, Ab2, with a drone string tuned to Eb3. At times I’ve used that same interval relationship tuned to other pitches to align with other instruments. I have also explored different intervals.
Natural buzzings and rattlings are built into each instrument’s designs. What might the original performers have been emulating?
CT: It’s the spirits of the ancestors.
JA: I think the guimbri is a very vocal instrument. The rattles are as acoustic as any other aspect of the two instruments’ sounds. I don’t see anything positive coming from me trying to speculate about the intentions of those who invented these ingenious instruments.
One legend has the mbira first being heard from inside a rock, as an instrument of the spirits. Isn’t all (good) music a product of the divine; an obligation to carry a message?
CT: That argument could be made, but I feel certain types of music and instruments are more spiritual than others. The mbira is a spiritual instrument and I mean that literally. According to my teacher the translation of mbira is “Telephone to God.” An mbira, unlike a kalimba, is always made by hand and each maker puts his or her spiritual energy into the instrument. The instrument and the music it makes is traditionally used to communicate with the spirits of the ancestors. Spirit possession can often happen during an mbira ceremony.
JA: It’s tough for me to be that prescriptive. There is a lot of amazing music out there that happens for countless reasons.
What about Gnawa purists who say a spiritual essence is lost by placing their music into modern fusion contexts?
CT: There are mbira traditionalists who believe the instrument should not be played outside of its traditional role and should not be amplified electronically. There have always been and always will be traditionalists in music. However, I personally believe that music has no boundaries. If you understand and respect the past then it gives you more insight into the future and the unknown.
JA: Mind Maintenance’s first record was done live without overdubs through microphones onto tape. In some ways we’re interested in building a new context as we haven’t found documentation of these two instruments being played together at all, let alone in a duo setting. In other ways we participate in the ancient context of creating acoustic music.
There are no electric instruments on this record. We did use electricity to make the record with microphones which is a similar practice to most recordings, besides wax cylinder ones from the 1800s.
Main image photo credit: Lisa Alvarado
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