Yours truly, got to know Scottish-Zambian singer-songwriter Namvula Muntemba-Rennie in 2014 thanks to her long player debut 'Shiwezwa', an album we described as a mix of singer-songwriter pop, folk, jazz and African influences, and the same recipe is also repeated on successor 'Quiet Revolutions'. For this album Namvula drew on the life stories of various women who inspired her over the years; a mix of women whom she met during her work as a photographer, figures from folk tales and musical heroes like Cesaria Evora, Miriam Makeba, Lilly Tchiumba and Angelique Kidjo. Eleven of the twelve tracks are original compositions, except for 'Nalile' (roughly translated: "little sorrow"), which is a Zambian traditional sung in Ila and complemented by Namvula with a self-penned part she based on Nina Simone's iconic 'Blackbird', and for 'Nine Olimbe' and 'Nkondo', she teamed up with James Sakala, nicknamed "the kalindula king" (a local Zambian bass) and seen as the new ambassador of traditional Zambian music. 'Quiet Revolutions' opens with the dreamy melancholic 'Mbuya', a song about the loss of language, dedicated to Namvula's grandmother whose language the singer doesn't speak. The more up-tempo 'Zuba' is also dedicated to a family member, this time Namvula's niece, telling her to always be herself, dance her own dance and sing her own song, with her face to the sun and her back on her troubles. Chris Williams' sax, prominently features in 'Zuba', and also pops up in jazzy singer-songwriter tracks like 'Kolomfula', inspired by the story of a woman from Zanzibar whose ancestors were brought from Malawi to the island as slaves, and closing track 'Prayer', but can also be heard in more afrobeat-influenced songs like 'Boola Kuli', about the longing for lost love, or 'Moto', an ode to female beauty. Womanhood or femininity is also the theme of this album or as Namvula puts it herself: "The songs are inspired by my growth into womanhood and by girls and woman - real or imagined - whose lives moved me. I dedicate this work to my newborn son, who is teaching me the beauty of motherhood and to the women whose stories and suns I dance beneath.".