The Gold Transmission

djama ko means people in bambara, the language of mali. and this episode is dedicated to someone who helped make the song possible. in 2020, arts consultant preston justice nominated orchestra gold for a yerba buena gardens festival mini commission, a program supporting 20 bay area artists around the themes of endurance, hope and community. marcelo aviles, director of programming at ybg festival, made sure it all came together. the commission paid the players and supported the video. without them this song might have stayed on the shelf. marcelo passed earlier this year. this one is for him. in this episode you'll hear the guitar lick inspired by norman greenbaum's spirit in the sky, the home studio demo recorded entirely during the pandemic, mariama talking about what djama ko really means, and a studio version featuring martin perna of antibalas on flute and kevin goldberg on bass. this is the gold transmission. we go behind the curtain so you can hear how the music actually gets made.9poFEyrocff4P25xeEHWwant to go deeper? the vault is where we keep the good stuff. podcasts (ad-free!), demos, unreleased recordings, behind-the-scenes music and more. starts at $4 a month.orchestragold.com/vault.and if you want to take a piece of us home, our music really comes alive on wax:orchestragold.com/store

nema is a word in bambara that doesn't translate directly into english. it means something like freshness, the feeling after rain, the warmth of having someone you love next to you. mariama says love and nema work together but they're not the same thing. english doesn't quite have it. in this episode mariama explains what nema means and why it became a love song. then we go inside the making of it. the song was inspired by a track called tasi doni by super biton de segou, one of the great malian orchestras of the 1960s and 1970s. erich has had the privilege of meeting some of the members on visits back to segou. the vibe of that track, not any specific element, became the seed of nema. you'll hear the initial guitar loop, a lead guitar part that got so hot it ended up becoming the horn lines, and the full demo before the album version. this is the gold transmission. we go behind the curtain so you can hear how the music actually gets made.want to go deeper? the vault is where we keep the good stuff. podcasts (ad-free!), demos, unreleased recordings, behind-the-scenes music and more. starts at $4 a month.orchestragold.com/vault.and if you want to take a piece of us home, our music really comes alive on wax:orchestragold.com/store