There is something frustratingly hard to pin down about the four laid-back Mozambican cats known to their growing fan base as 340ml. While their name refers to the standard volume of a can of beer, their music — a heady combination of reggae, dub, funk, world grooves, rock and jazz — is more like an elaborate musical cocktail.
The guys themselves don’t really know in which section of the CD shop their music should be shelved. If you ask 340ml what style of music they play, don’t expect a straightforward answer. As drummer Paulo Chibanga says: “We like to exercise our freedom, the freedom to take any style and twist it and make it ours.”
I glide into Tokyo Star in Melville with confidence. I do, after all, have a purpose. “I’m here to interview 340ml,” I tell a friend who is loitering at the bar. “Ohhh,” she says knowingly, “that guitarist is sooo hot.”
It is not the first time I have heard that said about one of the members of 340ml. But despite the band being hyped as the “new big thing”, the guys are accessible and easy to chat to, which is something that adds to their appeal.
Their chilled attitudes reflect their Mozambican background, and moving to the Jozi fast lane did take some adjustment. Lead singer Pedro da Silva Pinto says: “When we got here it was a bit weird, people would sit and have a three-hour conversation about cars, and at first we couldn’t really relate, so what we would do, every chance we’d get, is go to CD Wherehouse and spend hours there listening to music, and there was this excitement every time we found a new band we’d never heard of, be it jazz-rock or electronica.”
Reggae may be the band’s dominant sound, but it is used as a platform to explore any style they fancy. Guitarist Tiago Paulo says: “Reggae is usually our common ground, and then each of us brings in his own influences.” This makes for an interesting musical paella. As Pedro puts it: “I think we’d get really bored if we played straight reggae.”
It is no coincidence that their first album is titled Moving. 340ml are all about progression. On stage they have begun to experiment with a Roland 808 sampler, and have perfected a dub echo that is so integral to their sound that a music-producer friend of mine refers to it as “their fifth member”. The band is in constant flux, so don’t be surprised if by the release of their second album they are on to something completely new.
Says Paulo: “We might disappoint a few fans by changing, but as long as we’re happy, and we’re progressing, and as long as it tops what we’ve done in the past, it’s all good.”
Adds Tiago: “There’s a lot of stuff that we do that doesn’t really leave our practise room, so we’re really looking forward to expanding our horizons and experimenting with different sounds, different venues, different people.”
Already 340ml play to an unusually diverse crowd. “It’s cool that when we play a venue we aren’t playing to one particular group,” says bassist Rui Soeiro.
Tiago says: “I enjoy that we can make the music we want to make and black, white, purple and green people will come check it out and feel our music.”
It is music that transcends racial and cultural divisions, and the band associates with other artists that share a similar vision, such as acclaimed rapper-poet Tumi Molekwane whose band, The Volume, includes half of 340ml (Tiago and Paulo), and genre-crossing singer MXO, who collaborates with 340ml regularly.
I drain my beer and think about where these four renegades will end up. It may be far from where they are now, but it will certainly be in the right direction.
“It’s so hard to say where you’re going to be in a few years,” says Tiago. “I think we should write the official World Cup song,” fantasises Paulo, and they all laugh, but I don’t because with these cats anything is possible.