One Thang After Another
Shabaka Hutchings trades sax pyrotechnics for the serene sounds of the flute, while The Messthetics team with James Brandon Lewis to riff, groove, and shred.
Shabaka - Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace
The venerable Shabaka Hutchings— now recording under his first name only— just put out a new album, and it’s a change-up from his usual sound. From my FLOOD Magazine review:
A celebrated musician—widely lauded as a generational talent and a technical virtuoso—sets aside the instrument he’s most famous for. He says that he’s getting too old, too burned out; that he has nothing left to say. Instead he picks up a flute, he calls the LA new-age/jazz guru Carlo Niño, and cuts an album of soothing ambiance. Does this sound familiar?
No, this isn’t a story about André 3000, the iconic OutKast rapper who recently traded verbal dexterity for wandering woodwind solos. It’s a story about Shabaka Hutchings, the acclaimed saxophonist who’s one of the most heralded jazz prodigies of his generation. Leading influential groups including Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming, and the Ancestors, Hutchings built his reputation on scorching solos, instrumental pyrotechnics, and music with a distinctly political charge. His playing has always felt like it’s born out of friction, which is precisely what makes his new solo album, Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, feel like such a left-turn. It’s not just that he’s cast aside his trusty sax; it’s that he’s shifted from kinetic energy into meditative tranquility. Is it possible for an album to be both calming and jarring at the same time?
It is difficult to avoid direct comparisons to last year’s New Blue Sun—not just because Shabaka and André share so much overlapping personnel, not even because André himself shows up in a supporting role with Shabaka. There’s a much deeper spiritual kinship between the two albums, both of which draw equally from the jazz and ambient traditions, and both of which sound like the kind of music you’d hear in an herbal tea shop or in the backdrop of a yoga video. The kinship exists not just in the music itself, but also in the metanarratives: Both albums are more moving when you hear them as efforts by their creators to cast off the demands of celebrity and expectation and to instead make music conducive to a slower pace and a more generous sense of self-care.
Long-time readers may be aware of my ambivalence toward ambient and new age music, and there are moments on the Shabaka album that teeter toward genre parody. Even so, its a beautifully recorded album with an endearing sense of earnestness, along with tasteful flourishes from a supporting cast that includes Jason Moran, Floating Points, and more. You can read my full review here.
My rating: 6.5 out of 10
The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis
Since their inception, The Messthetics have always packed plenty of firepower. The rhythm section— bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty, both formerly of the hardcore group Fugazi— is equally persuasive with pummeling punk and sleek, slinky grooves. Guitarist Anthony Pirog masterfully builds tension, then lets rip with a maelstrom of riffs and shredding.
Adding saxophonist James Brandon Lewis to the mix feels like throwing gasoline onto an inferno that’s already fully ablaze— and yet, the group’s new collaborative album someone manages to amplify the excitement and intensity of the first two Messthetics albums. Over the course of nine instrumentals, the trio demonstrates their typical command of dynamics and volatility, with Lewis’ skronking sax pushing them to new levels of intensity.
This is the first Messthetics record to be released on Impulse— the label whose roster famously includes John and Alice Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Quincy Jones— and the cover practically screams vintage jazz. And yet even with the technical bona fides of Lewis, the music remains elusive, shifting, unpredictable.
In fact, some of the most arresting songs adopt a more rock-oriented posture. An early album highlight is “Emergence,” where Lewis wails over furious guitar riffs. “That Thang” is turbocharged funk, with Lewis swaggering like he’s in James Brown’s horn section and Pirog digging deep into his collection of distortion pedals and special effects.
And yet for all their muscle, The Messthetics have never been about sheer aggression. Nothing here quite qualifies as a ballad, but there’s certainly a sense of patience informing “Boatly,” which spends seven minutes building from noir-ish intrigue to an explosive peak. In the ambling “Railroad Tracks Home,” the group delivers one of their nimblest grooves.
The record closes with “Fourth Wall,” which borrows its ominous pulse from Radiohead’s “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.” The song is atmospheric and volatile, emanating intelligence while attesting to the band’s combustive interplay. It’s a rousing finale, and proof enough that inviting Lewis into the fold has resulted in the most irresistible Messthetics album yet.
My rating: 7.5 out of 10
Amaro Freitas - Y’Y
“It’s as though my left hand is Africa and my right hand is Europe,” the Brazilian pianist Amaro Freitas recently declared to The New York Times. It’s a vivid illustration of the cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary approach he takes on his striking new album, Y’Y. Across its 43 minutes, the record offers jostling rhythmic explorations and carefully-considered formal beauty, frequently at the same time.
If that sounds highfalutin, it is. Freitas’ music is nothing if not thoughtfully composed, more closely resembling an orchestral suite than a blowing session. The first several songs on the album bleed together into a single seamless movement, underscoring the sense that Y’Y is meant to be taken as a big statement rather than a simple collection of tunes.
But just because the album is erudite, that doesn’t mean it’s unapproachable. On the contrary, Y’Y is an immersive experience. Beautifully recorded with rich, sonorous sounds, any of these compositions could be prime contenders for Spotify’s “Songs to Test Headphones With” playlist. Freitas bangs out brooding rhythms with one hand while layering prepared piano effects with the other; you’ll also hear flutes, birdsong, and rattling hand percussion that recalls nothing so much as Mwandashi-era Herbie Hancock.
Though reflective in its mood, Y’Y avoids insularity by bringing in a dream team of guests, including some of the most exciting players in jazz today. Shabaka lends his flute to the title cut, his new age reverie punctuated with nail-gun blasts from Freitas’ piano. The album’s high point is the dream-like “Gloriosa,” caressed with glittery notes from harpist Brandee Younger— an instrumentalist whose involvement with any album automatically makes it better.
Y’Y confirms Freitas as a serious composer and an inventive player, but more than that, it attests to the sophistication inherent to both jazz and Brazilian music traditions. Though not an album designed for casual play, its rich atmosphere makes it worth getting lost in.
My rating: 7 out of 10
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