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In between the two, it couldn’t have worked better, a story of time concordance, a matter of energy, the essence to which they each fueled in their own way, the singular kind. Him, Nicolas Dacunha, a native of the Parisian suburbs and her, Faty Sy Savanet, born in Kinshasa, grew up in Lemba, the trendy district of the Congolese capital. After a mystical encounter in Paris, they revealed themselves as ‘Tshegue’,
the supercombo of tribal garage rock and afropunk.
As befits their name - both Faty’s childhood nickname and a term for the Congolese boys who gather on the streets of her hometown, Kinshasa - the Survivor EP captures TSHEGUE folding traditional African antecedents into a commanding brew of punk and garage sensibilities, as idiosyncratic as the band’s DNA itself.
Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s music-obsessed capital Kinshasa, Faty then relocated with her family to Paris aged 8. In her early twenties a mutual friend brought her into contact with Robert Wyatt-collaborator Ber- trand Burgalat, whose cult Tricatel label has been referenced as a key influence by the likes of Air and Daft Punk. Burgalat encouraged and enabled her formative musical experiments - including a short-lived voodoo n roll band - until Faty was introduced to future TSHEGUE bandmate, French-Cuban producer Nicolas ‘Dakou’ Dacunha, whose hypnotic, breathless beats form the driving backbone of both ‘Muanapoto’ and the ‘Survivor’ EP.
