I Have No Everything Here

In the summer of 2013, Grammy-winning producer, Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, TV on the Radio) and his wife, Italian photographer and filmmaker, Marilena Delli, traveled to the border of Malawi and Mozambique specifically to document and record the music of prisoners at the maximum security prison in Zomba. Zomba prison is a dilapidated brick structure that resembles a factory from a Dickens novel and was built in the 19th century. Designed to hold 340 people, today it houses over two thousand. Music provides one of the only outlets for the prisoners. Despite (or perhaps because of) the conditions they were recorded under, the performances that Brennan documented for this album are filled with a shocking stark beauty, with themes ranging from anger, despair, redemption and hope. Brennan states, 'How can it be that there are what are labeled 'music centers' in the world? Music is universal. It exists everywhere and is a necessity for survival & spiritually. It is indefensible that literally hundreds of thousands of musicians from cities like London, LA and New York have been heard ad nauseaum for decades, while not a single record has ever even been released internationally from entire countries composed of millions of citizens and that have been rendered so invisible that the majority of people on the planet would have a hard time even locating them on a map.' The Zomba Prison Project is unlike any record you will hear this year (or any other). In a world filled with disposable sounds, this music and these stories will stay with you long after you are done listening.