And now for something completely different.

Let’s begin with the chekeré. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, “it is a West African percussion instrument consisting of a dried gourd with beads or cowries woven into a net covering the gourd…. In performance it is shaken and/or hit against the hands.” That same source explains that the chekeré “is common in West African and Latin American folkloric traditions as well as some of the popular music styles”.

As a result of the musical project Onkos, that last sentence quoted above will now have to be amended to add “and avant-garde death metal“. Continue reading »