Vula Viel

Bex Burch's Vula Viel is a jazz group from London, playing music based on the sound of the gyil, a wooden xylophone from West Africa, fused with elements of electronica and minimal music. The group was formed by Bex Burch, a musician from Yorkshire. Burch trained in percussion at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she was introduced to the minimalist music of Steve Reich, and then spent three years with the Dagaaba people of the Upper West Region of Ghana. There she learned music and xylophone making as the apprentice of a master xylophonist Thomas Sekgura before returning to the United Kingdom and forming Vula Viel. The name Vula Viel was given to Burch on the completion of her apprenticeship, and means "Good is Good" in the Dagaaba language, Dagaare.