Hazel Friedman
IT is the place where the bones of our earliest ancestors were unearthed. But the village of Taung, 160km north of Kimberley, also resonates in a different way through the music of keyboard supremo Paul Hamner.
His latest CD Trains To Taung – an instrumental journey through the roots of ancient music to contemporary urban African sound – wins the Mail & Guardian’s Design of The Week award. And it is in the spirit of bridging past and present that the sensitive design was conceived. The brainchild of marketing director of Penta Publications, Robyn Conway, and marketed by Damon Forbes of Sheer Sound, who was executive producer on the CD, the cover design sensitively encaspulates old and new. Decorated in metal and earth colours to symbolise past and present, the cover includes excerpts from the poetry of cultural historian Credo Mutwa, as well as ancient Taung motifs delicately printed on rice paper, like symbols on sacred scriptures.