The kora is a traditional West African instrument not unlike the combination of a guitar and harp and large gourd (though there is a lot more to it than my oversimplification) and the word “karuna” (or “karuṇā”) is found in Sanskrit and Jainism and translates roughly as “compassion” or “mercy.” Gabriel Bass and his associates in Kora Karuna create just such in atmosphere within “Kolombia Is the Future,” their lovely marriage of organic and synthetic, on Ball of Wax 65.
As previously mentioned, the theme here at #65 is “the future,” and the artists are free to pursue or express that theme however they desire. Opening on the gentle plucks of the kora and an alternating-current drone with oscillations and electronic spritzes and splashes, Kora Karuna invite the listener into a future of naturopathic spiritual cleansing and fern-speckled valleys, joined in here and there on what I believe to be a very lively marimba and a synth bass that holds the otherwise freestyling players together.
But before simply declaring that the future is a full return to the acoustics and hide-and-wood tones of nature in the spirit of reconnecting with that from which we all get our start, that buzzy drone shows up again to upstage the gang, at least for a bar or two. Electronics don’t belong in this valley, do they? Or don’t they? If the drone and synth bass were removed, the song would lose something. Maybe, then, the future is really a world of symbiotic codependence between man and machine and animal and circuit board and rocks and trees and electrons—not like a SkyNet-McGovCorp world with its envy and excess and demand for subjugation, but like a place filled with mutual respect, genuine extraself interest, desire to understand and help the community—“compassion” or “mercy,” even. Maybe Kolombia?