Who is xmunashe? Preparing for a Night of Improvisation with the Independent Cult Musician

Xmunashe is wearing two pairs of see-through glasses, on top of a white-star printed beanie, when I meet him for the first time. He’s waiting outside a door way in Redfern, and the first thing I think is: What could he could possibly need two pairs of glasses for? Was it just fashion? Was he just inordinately blind?

Whatever it was, it was the first indicator of his unorthodox nature. After all, xmunashe is an artist who, only a month ago, seemingly appeared out of nowhere and began circulating on social media, nestled between images of low-lit rooms, head-nodding crowds, and Frank Ocean-esque crooning.

The Perth-born 22-year-old now lives in Sydney and has been making music for the last three years. At first, I’d seen him playing keys — singing in a high vibrato — in a video on Twitter, and then spent an hour trying to track down any piece of detail of his life. There wasn’t much.

The most endearing aspect of my research was that xmunashe seemed like an artist who didn’t look to be conforming to the plasticity of big labels. Instead, he was following a unique trajectory – a way of doing things that’s innovating Australia’s music scene and avoiding the homogenous greyness that comes with chasing money and fame.

By the time we agree to meet and I stand outside a bar in Redfern, I still don’t know his real name and also, days later when I messages, he simply says, “just xmunashe”. Fela Kuti’s “Water No Get Enemy” pounds over the speakers above and we make our way up a flight of stairs into a studio landing on the second floor. The bar below us is spattered with middle-aged, leather jacket-wearing patrons, and the music echoes through the wooden floors.

“Do you own this place?” I ask.

"Nah, but we know the guy that owns it," he says, "So we spoke to him and helped him clear it out and he said we can use it for the show.”

The loft-style space has high ceilings and wooden floors. Previously, the area acted as a giant storage shed filled with couches and boxes tipping towards the ceiling. Now, a variety of instruments – drums, some synths, pianos and a bongo – sit surrounded by black leather couches, with speakers jutting out from the edge of the room. I’m introduced to Josh, one third of the musicians who will be performing alongside xmunashe tonight.

“Everyone rotates around during the whole show,” says xmunashe, leading me into a back room filled with mannequin doll parts, cardboard boxes, and a few picture frames. “So [Josh] can play drums, keys and guitar and sings with me as well.”

The whole space backs out onto a tin roof –  xmunashe says you can run around and see the entire city from it.

Jonti – whose past adventures have seen him play alongside global outfits like the Avalanches and has had a hat tip from the likes of Tyler the Creator - is the other member of the trio. Like Josh and xmunashe, he is a multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, a little synth, singing when he can. It’s just the three of them.

We’re four hours before the show and the boys are trying to figure out what else needs to happen to make the space tick. 

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do with all this shit,” says xmunashe, pointing to a corner filled with assortment furniture. “Maybe just throw a sheet over it.”

There’s a brief discussion about whether they should pick up another midi for Jonti, before xmunashe and I settle on a couch in front of one-third of the instruments and I try to uncover what I couldn’t find on the internet.

Four years ago, at the age of 18, xmunashe moved to Sydney from Perth. For him, Perth was “cosy, calm, super chill, a nice small city”, not everyone knew each other but it was just small enough that you’d see the same people around. He picked up drum lessons at school and played at his local church. At 15, he began learning piano.

“I only really started making my own music when I came to Sydney, so I got a lot of homies who are from Perth but I wasn’t a music person there,” he says.

“But I feel like you don’t get the opportunities [in Perth], because they’re very slim compared to the things you can do here. All the labels and industry is here. But Perth’s crazy. I think it’s kind of a good thing that they don’t have all of the industry bullshit that comes with that because you can do your own thing.”

To date, xmunashe hasn’t released any music (except for a feature alongside Tasman Keith and Mali Jo$e), but he has an album on the back-burner. Most of the songs from that upcoming project he plays at his live shows.

“I was talking with Pat and we were going back and forth, ‘How can we actually make it cool and different?’”

“I think there’s so much good music coming out now that you’ve got to find a point of difference. So I think picking up these live shows straight away has been our thing. Introduce people to the music live – before releasing a record. Sometimes people post some shit and I’m like why would I listen to this? ”

While he’s not physically releasing songs, xmunashe has been playing countless shows. First came a month-long residency at Sydney’s Golden Age Cinema. Last week he played two shows in Melbourne. And now he’s getting ready for two shows in this studio space.

“I feel like the last two weeks have been insane,” he says.

“Most of the songs that we’ve been doing were written two years ago, and I’ve been with Pat planning this shit for two years. So I’ve had it all ready but just trying to see what the perfect time was to start doing things publicly.”

At xmunashe’s shows, everything seems planned at the last minute. In reality, it has been envisioned months ahead. Most of his performances are improvised – a back-and-forth tennis game between Josh, Jonti and xmunashe. The communication, he says, comes through intense eye contact and an innate ear for music. Later that night, I’ll experience this methodology firsthand. I watch them stare, nod and feel through the tracks, seamlessly – with the odd hiccup – blazing through songs with expertise.

“Do you ever rehearse?” I say.

“We rehearse.”

“But it’s more so to get in tune with each other. To get the chemistry up because we never play what we rehearse. We’re constantly looking at each other because we make it up as we go. I’m kind of in charge, so I‘ll just start playing some shit and then they follow. Sometimes, half way through, I’m like ‘nah, this is boring, let’s change the structure’ and they’ll change too and I’m like, ‘How did you know I was going to do that?’ They’re following me every step of the way.”

It’s one reason audiences have been connecting to xmunashe’s music to such a degree. Every show is different, interactive, and non-conformist. And he doesn’t just sing of money and “bitches”.

“I don’t have enough money and bitches,” he laughs.

Instead, his music wavers between personal experiences of life, his parents, his thoughts, and his future.

“It’s my philosophy and ideologies in the world. One song we were doing in Melbourne the other day, goes “What is making it to you? Is it money and a view?” 

Maybe there no rights, maybe there no wrongs, maybe we’re all lyricists writing our own songs.

“The music we listen to and the stuff that means a lot to me, whether it’s Kendrick [Lamar], people talking about their life and then sharing some sort of meaning out of their personal experience; that’s what we try and do. That’s all I know. I know my own life,” he says.

After an hour of chatting, and a slight relocation to the bar below where xmunashe orders a gin, Josh, a tequila soda, and a seltzer (for me) our interview comes to an end. I wish them luck and four hours later I’m standing front row, shoulder to shoulder with 100 other bystanders.

The space is dark, a sheet has been thrown over the “shit in the corner”, and xmunashe, Josh and Jonti take their places at the mountain of instruments set out before them, facing inwards.

Earlier in the day, xmunashe compared their performances to late night jazz shows: the hazy rooms, the small crowds, the dull lights. He’d pointed to Sydneyside musician Yasmina Sadiki and her band, whose shows champion improvisation, leg-melting vocal runs and visceral, emotional songs. 

xmunashe’s set-up achieves the same feeling of intimacy of a jazz show but in an even better and idiosyncratic way. They pull the crowd in from all sides: Sydney trendsetters who quieten down as xmunashe croons his first song, byo beers in their hands, serious expressions on their faces. It feels interactive, like you’re part of the performance, but also safe in the confines of the crowd. It’s different to watching a band on-stage, often feeling like you’re on the outer; a visitor to the show. Here it feels like you’re a part of it.

“That’s the thing – we’re not performing for no one,” xmunashe said.

“You’re not coming here and trying to suss us out performing. We’re just having fun. And if you fuck with it, you fuck with it. But that takes the pressure off us.”

They move through a number of songs. It’s hard to tell where one starts and the other ends. Every few minutes they’ll switch position so that instead of a bongo Josh will be on guitar, Jonti will be on keys and xmunashe will be singing into a red telephone that he’s manufactured into a mic. The songs themselves are usually slow, trepidatious and – though I hate making this comparison because it’s so generic – remind me of that nostalgic, carefree disposition created by listening to Frank Ocean’s Blond. The performance is effortless, interesting and probably unlike anything I’ve seen in recent years. It feels authentic.

“I want to make sure everything that I do is fucking excellent to me,” xmunashe had said hours earlier.

“Make people feel something. Make the shit we listen to that makes us think about our lives or help us deal with our shit. I think that’s why we write about it. We just want to connect with people.”

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