Name: Siselabonga
Members: Nongoma Ndlovu (keys, vocals), Fabio Meier (percussion)
Interviewee: Fabio Meier
Nationalities: South-African & Zimbabwean & Swiss (Nongoma), Swiss (Fabio)
Current release: Siselabonga's new full-length album Halo's Glitter is out via A Tree in a Field.
Pure drum recordings recommendations: My favorite percussion recording is Percussion Ensemble by Louis Cesar Ewande published in 1988.
In 2020 Yussef Dayes published a limited edition LP in collab with the London clothing brand Patta - Blackfriars. I think it was an edition of 200 LPs, only drums. I never got the LP but I had the chance to listen to it once and it’s dope.
One album I always come back to is Hamanah by Mamady Keita (RIP) published in 1996. It’s a Djembé album only focusing on the doundounba rhythms. Thing is so powerful and intense.
Pocket Change by Nate Smith is a superb drum record, too, that I like to listen to.
Hometown Recommendations: I live in Winterthur, a small provincial city next to Zurich and would recommend visiting Lagerplatz. That's a former industrial complex which is now a cultural melting point. You find a vinyl shop, cute cafés, studios, rehearsal spaces, a hostel, skatepark, alternative cinema, an underground club and lots of studio’s of artists of all kinds of metiers.  

[Read our Yussef Dayes interview]

If you enjoyed this Siselabonga interview and would like to stay up to date with their music, visit their official homepage. The band are also on Instagram, and Facebook.

For a deeper dive, read our earlier Siselabonga interview. Also coming up soon is a conversation with Nongoma Ndlovu about her lyrics. 



It seems as though most aspiring artists are drawn to the drums and percussion for one of two reasons: Creating sound/noise and creating rhythm. What captivated you?

Huf, good question. I think as a child it was sound, noise and texture. The drums my mama would bring me home from her travels as a flight attendant were so exciting to me on all levels of my sensory perceptions, even the smell of these drums, hahaha.

Later it was definitely the rhythm itself as a tool to shape time and space and how you interlock with others to create physical and emotional sensations.

What was your first drum set like and what are you using today? What, to you personally, are factors in terms of build and design that you appreciate in drums and percussion instruments?

My first instrument was the trumpet, more precisely the cornet.

2 years into practising the cornet I realised I can’t do this. All I want to do is play the drums. So I had to convince my parents that I wanted to switch. Which took quite some effort, because they were convinced that I would do the same as soon as I hit the first difficulties in the learning process of the drums too, hahaha. But we got there.

So my first practice situation was me using my music stand as a hi-hat, the wood of my bed frame as a snare and my foot tapping on the floor as a bass drum. From time to time I could go to my friend’s house who already played drums for some time and had a proper Sonor woodfinish drum set at home with Zyldian Cymbals and two mini congas. Early on we also started to jam together. Him mostly on drums and me on the mini congas hitting them with sticks, hahaha.

As my parents saw that this thing was really exciting to me and that I was playing regularly out of intrinsic motivation they bought me a black Premier drum set (20”/14”/10”/12”/14”). Which are to this day my favorite drum sizes.

Today I put together my own percussion drum set. I use a Bass Cajon (Schlagwerk) as kick , a 10” snare (A&F Drums), a 7” hi-hat made out of an istanbul turk bell (top) and a Ufip splash, a 14” Calabash as “snare”, a vintage imperial 11” tom with a calf skin, an 16” Istanbul Mehmet Medium Crash that I manipulated a bit with a local cymbal smith to make it sound more light and breathing. I use this as a ride and crash.

Then I have two Vietnamese gongs turned upside down and one Chinese gong muffled as some kinda hi-hat and a Djembé that I made in collaboration with the French-Cameroonian percussionist Louis César Ewande and the Senegalese drum artisan Matar Lamb. The wood is dimba, which is a wood that is not traditionally used for Djembé but Sabar (traditional Senegalese drum). I mounted the Djembe with goat skin.

As you can see I like handmade instruments. I like if they have an individual character, something bizarre to it, a bit of sizzling and buzzing. I don’t like instruments that sound dead with no inner resonance or a sound that plastic gives me.  

Late Rush-drummer Neil Peart said: “The equipment is not an influence. It doesn't affect the way I play. It's an expression of the way I play.” What's your take on that?

I think this is definitely the right attitude; everything else will lead to being a victim of consumerism.

But still, a good instrument can be uplifting and enhance my playing. A bad instrument is not an excuse but a good instrument can make something beautiful even more beautiful.

But production-wise I believe that the “cheap” sound can be as crucial to the beauty of the outcome as the super expansive high-end sound.

The drums and percussive instruments are an integral part of many cultures, and traditions. Which of these do you draw from in your playing – and why?

Concerning traditional music - I got to study West African djembé music which is to my knowledge mostly Mandigue culture but also Soussou, Djola and more. I draw a lot of inspiration from the way they phrase and their rhythmic placement. Their way of using polyrhythms, their way of building up tension and how to release it and the rhythmic intensity as a whole.

I had the privilege to spend a bit more than a year in Senegal. In Senegal they play Djembé but it’s not their national heritage like in Guinea Conakry, Mali or Burkina Faso. The traditional Senegalese drum is Sabar.

I never actively studied Sabar. I don't intellectually understand it but it’s everywhere in Senegal and you always hear from far a feast that includes Sabar.



Also their Pop Music “Mbalax,” for example, is heavily influenced by the Sabar rhythms, so you really can’t escape this speciality if you are in Senegal. I think that influenced me, too.



What were some of the main challenges in your development as a drummer / percussionist? Which practices, exercises, or experiences were most helpful in reaching your goals?

One of the main challenges till now is definitely to work on my instrument on a regular basis. It’s so easy to get distracted and focus on other stuff related to my music practice and biz and get caught up in them.

Another one is to find my own voice. For sure we copy other artists to develop a repertoire but at the end you gotta be connected to our own truth to express truth and people can feel this conscious or unconscious, artist and non-artist.

How would you describe the physical sensation of playing the drums? [Where do you feel the resonances/pulse/groove, what are emotional  sensations, is there a sense of release or tension etc …]

Hm, I think it is very similar to making love to somebody or giving a woman an orgasm. You gotta be subtle and relaxed in the body and mind.

But not only - in the right moment you gotta be determined. You can’t control things and just recite a formula. You need to be constantly 100% focused and ready to adapt your approach to the circumstances. You have to be 100% connected to your counterpart. If you are trapped in your mind it’s not gonna work. You have to be conscious about body sensations, small signs. If you are all tight up the instruments want sound.

Emotionally for me it’s often about fear and how to go into the fear (tension) with open eyes to break through it and come out on the other side of the tunnel and feel freedom and love (release).

And it’s never guaranteed. Sometimes magic happens, sometimes we just get close to it, sometimes not at all. Guess that's where the beauty of that whole game lays.

Do you feel that honing your compositional / songwriting skills has an effect on your drumming skills?

Definitely I think as drummers, or as instrumentalists in general, we are occupied with what we could add but most of the time it’s more about what we can leave away.

Therefore if I listen to a song from a songwriting perspective I get more emotional ideas which are often much more conducive for the piece of art rather than technical or fancy ideas which come more from an individualistic instrumentalist point of view.

How has technology, such as drum machines and sequencers, impacted the way rhythm is created and perceived? Has it been a concrete influence on your own approach?

Since I’m a 90s kid I think my rhythmic standard is very much influenced by MPCs. Which means my perception of time is not 100% “natural,” it’s biased by an objective / quantised norm.

But by listening to a lot of not quantized music as well, I dig and try to cultivate both and everything in between - cold ass quantized drum machine grooves, drum machine grooves that play around the grid, oval rhythms (which means in my musical cosmos they don’t spin completely round but more oval, they speed up and slow down but in a consistent manner, which makes them tight and solid but not in a mathematic way.

And then rhythms that move constantly but in solid connection with all parts of the rhythm.