Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
£5GBP or more
The gorgeous All Shades tee plus the limited edition double EP vinyl
(please note - the vinyl ships out around December once both EPs are released!!)
ships out within 5 days
edition of 10
£38GBPor more
This bundle packed with sunshine comes with...well...pretty much everything!
- Limited edition, signed and numbered vinyl (double EP) (PLEASE NOTE the vinyls are due for shipping end of year after the release of the 2nd EP!)
- Digital downloads of the 2 EPs being released in 2022 (June / December)
- All Shades cotton tee (black)
- Access to acoustic gig + chats (date tba, access link sent closer to date)
- Access to private advance EP listening sessions (dates tbc, access links sent closer to date)
- Moi, toi et un café: a (virtual) coffee date
ships out within 5 days
edition of 5
£60GBPor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Deluxe 12" vinyl version of the All Shades of the Sun EP, with bonus tracks of track remixes. Gorgeous cover artwork by Sophie Bass (see mockup image). Limited edition, signed and numbered. Shipping out February / March.
Includes unlimited streaming of All Shades of the Sun ep
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 5 days
edition of 100
£20GBPor more
T-Shirt/Shirt + Digital Album
This may well become one of your faves. Super soft, super comfortable, with gorgeous original artwork by Sophie Bass, and screen printed with soul on fair trade organic cotton.
Available in men's and women's so please write a note with the order to specify.
Includes unlimited streaming of All Shades of the Sun ep
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 5 days
£20GBPor more
Bag + Digital Album
Made with certified fair trade cotton, this gorgeous tote gives you plenty of space for your 'katundu' (as we call 'stuff' back in Zambia), and is just so visually pleasing, ain't it? A (very!) limited edition All Shades of the Sun run.
Includes unlimited streaming of All Shades of the Sun ep
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 5 days
edition of 10
1 remaining
£18GBPor more
Poster/Print + Digital Album
The gorgeous A4 All Shades of the Sun artwork, turned into a limited edition art print. A very very limited run, never to be reprinted again.
Includes unlimited streaming of All Shades of the Sun ep
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Somewhere between the right and the wrong
There’s a field there
Somewhere in the eye of the storm
There is air
Will you come meet me
Come and find me there?
We can lay it all down
There’s a silence there
Walkin’ on the knife’s edge
So close to fallin’
/The river banks are breakin’
And if those boiling waters come rushing through
If it all crashes down
Can we find our way back to the shore
Can we turn it all around?
Chorus
Softly softly
Will you tread softly
ooh, lay it all down
Lightly lightly
Will you walk lightly
Ooh, lay it all down
Leave it behind
Make your heart light
Leave it behind
Lay it all down
(Now / no) I’m nowhere near a perfect human
But here I am
Eyes open, arms open
I’ll wait, I’ll wait
We can find rest here
Even for a while
We can lay it all down
There’s a silence here
Cos we’ve been walking on the knife’s edge
So close to fallin’
Chorus
Softly softly
Will you tread softly
ooh, lay it all down
Lightly lightly
Will you walk lightly
Ooh, lay it all down
Leave it behind
Make your heart light
Leave it behind
Lay it all down
easy to point the finger
easy to lay the blame
easy to forget (to forget)
that love’s not a given
when you and I walk blind-sided
that’s a choice that we make:
to rather be numb and unseeing
than feel all that feeling
and you’ll fly like an arrow
into the wide and open sky
where there are saints and there sinners,
there are monsters and there are saints,
but none are strangers
cos when I look at you
you look at me
mirrors to each other’s being
we’re all multitudes of being
And there’s a garden
Inside of you
Where you can tend love
If you choose to
when life meets the edges of you
buffets you
bullets flying your way
and you’re caught dead centre
like a lamb led to the slaughter
when sorrow overwhelms by what you see, by what you hear
like the day they executed Quinn Jones in a Texas State prison
what words will you choose to speak?
what will you not say?
and I bring you into a wild and raging world
of forest fires and drowning islands
and where love often seems
close to impossible
And there’s a garden
Inside of you
Where you can tend love
If you choose to
Soleil……
about
All Shades of the Sun is not just about seeking answers to past and present conundrums. It’s about paying attention, listening, understanding and choosing to love. It’s about asking the right kind of questions—the ones that lurk in the shadows—and using every ounce of our individual and collective powers to cowrite a better collective script for the future.
The 5-track EP places under a musical lens urgent issues that confront us, including the rise of right-wing nationalism, the climate crisis, the Black Lives Matter movement, consumerism and political apathy. The collection of songs ultimately appeal to our common humanity in these distressed times, calling on our greater capacity for love and tenderness, towards ourselves and each other.
All Shades of the Sun is a collection that asks soul searching questions about life, love, and survival in a strange, chaotic, and wonderful world.
How do we face up to the world in this state of uncertainty? What have we lost and what are we losing in terms of a sense of community and commonality in an increasingly polarized world? What are the choices we have in how we navigate within the world? In the face of it all how do we humans stay soft, keeping love at the centre?
All Shades of the Sun was co-created with bassist and producer Liran Donin, who co-wrote and produced the project. The ideas were birthed and developed remotely, spanning two continents, during the pandemic. It is Namvula’s first fully collaborative release. It is supported by funding from PRS Foundation and Help Musicians, and Namvula’s crowdfunding community.
ABOUT THE TRACKS
The five tracks of All Shades of the Sun pulse with Namvula’s storytelling craft at their core, drawing inspiration from story, from poem, and from global predicament.
Soleil speaks of navigating this ‘wild and raging world’, and of balancing on a tightrope of grief and hope. With a lyrical urgency embedded in rock-fuelled , Namvula calls out to keep love at the centre of this impossible storm.
The sparse, hypnotising feel of the deserts of the north of Africa; the solitude of a night-time seascape: these seep into Maré, making for a mesmerising tribute to the resilience of the heartbroken, and to the things that keep us vulnerable - those things that allow us to keep gambling ‘everything on love’.
Propelled by the grooves of southern Africa, later to be joined by the irrepressible call of the chimurenga guitar, The Crossing / Mbira is a response to the suffering caused by rising nationalist rhetoric and the politicisation of migration, and a reminder of our common humanity: ‘beneath this skin we’re all the same / trying to make sense of this strange, cold world’.
The Fields’ beautifully simple guitar accompaniment of slowly gathering intensity, of us to make necessary and needed spaces of listening, that exist ‘somewhere between the right and the wrong’.
A tender, swirling intimacy imbues Dust to Dust, which laments the disappearance of ceremonies, stories and songs with the passing of elders, and a fraying the threads of our social and cultural tapestries that accompany.
credits
released September 29, 2023
Namvula: vocals
Liran Donin: bass, synth, bv's, claps, guimbri
Yuval Wetzler: drums
Phil Dawson: guitar
Mix & Master: Moshik Kop at NXNE Studios
Lyrics by Namvula Rennie
Music by Namvula Rennie & Liran Donin
Produced by Liran Donin
Album illustration by Sophie Bass
Album cover designed by Alex Rennie at Ten
With thanks to my crowdfunders, Help Musicians UK & PRS Foundation
Namvula's journey is an exploration of cultural
intersections and heartfelt storytelling. Weaving together a global soundscape inspired by the deep grooves of Africa, the lyrical sensibility of folk-pop and the improvisational freedom of jazz, her music reflects the nuances of her Zambian-Scottish heritage, and a restlessness born of her diasporic upbringing....more
supported by 5 fans who also own “All Shades of the Sun ep”
The production lays down an enthralling soulful, funky blend of modern and traditional that allows Rokia Koné's powerful vocals to really shine through. I'm so glad I was introduced to this! Colin M.
Inspired by the task of pearl diving, the 14 artists on this compilation contribute rippling synth songs full of wonder & mystery. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 4, 2021