President Bongo

Serengeti President Bongo

Stephan Stephensen aka President Bongo wears many hats, but likes to refer to himself as an emotional carpenter. Throughout his illustrious career, President Bongo has built, tooled, shaped, and reconstructed reality in a manner that has touched upon the emotional spheres of thousands, greatly increasing their quality of life and inner harmony in the process. President Bongo began properly mastering his craft as a founding member of the pioneering electronic band GusGus, which formed in 1995. As GusGus evolved and progressed through the years, President Bongo remained a key element, making innumerable contributions to its ongoing success through his work, which ranged from design, film, and photography to singing, songwriting, and production. In spring 2015 President Bongo left GusGus to concentrate on his own solo career and now presents his first solo album, Serengeti. Every year, the beasts of the Serengeti region rush northwest across the endless plains in search of fields for grazing. It's a tremendous sight -- millions of mammals headed in the same direction like a river of majestic proportions, flowing across the vast land toward the ocean. Six months later the zebras, wildebeest, and gazelles return south, once again sealing an infinite loop. Animal hearts brimming with blood, thumping as they traverse Africa; this is the sensation Serengeti evokes for its listener. Ancient dust stirred by the great migration rises and settles in a new corner of the plain. The land is forever altered, yet the same. Whenever the wind blows, nature's rhythms are unaffected. They are undying, relentless, constantly shifting and we are all subject to them. No use resisting. Serengeti is a return journey. The winds change, the dust re-settles, one matures, the music morphs. Close your eyes; your mind rushes across the plains under the burning sun.