We are very proud to announce details of a new set of recordings by Mumford & Son and Baaba Maal Johannesburg, made with Beatenberg and The Very Best. Released on the 17th June 2016, the songs were recorded in Studio 2 and the Auditorium of the The South African Broadcasting Corporation, Johannesburg in February 2015 over two all-day-and–all–night sessions and produced by Mumford & Sons and The Very Best’s Swedish electronic music maestro, Johan Hugo. The lead track, There Will Be Time, went straight to number 1 in South Africa upon release in late January and continued charting worldwide in the following months.
Through Johan, a few years after Laneway, we met the legend that is Baaba Maal, which has been one of the highlights of our career. I had the good fortune of taking Baaba up on an invitation to his home town of Podor in Senegal for the Blues de Fleuve festival in 2013, and I also got to hear and play with Baaba and his musicians (with Johan at the helm) as they made Baaba’s very beautiful ‘The Traveller’ album which has recently been released.
Winston Marshall
Baaba really encourages ideas and brings the best out of the four us I think. He’s a natural leader, and you know you’ve struck the right chord (literally) because he’ll open his mouth and all of a sudden the most epic vocal line with be riding over the top of the music. It’s interesting, he won’t simply sing over anything, he’ll wait until he hears something in what we’re offering him.
Ben Lovett