Thursday, June 11, 2020

Song(s) of the Day # 2,341 Shabaka & The Ancestors


This record, We Are Sent By History by Shabaka & The Ancestors, is one, long, lucid waking dream, Destined to be one of my very favourite records of the year, in a similar manner to the way Sarathy Korwar More Arriving topped my deck last, it's a swarming, boiling cauldron of a record and one to utterly hurl yourself into.


Pointers seem clear. In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew era Miles. Kamasi Washington, Sun Ra, the usual suspects and touchstones. There are also other contemporary influences tossed into the mix, this is by no means merely a Jazz record. The most crucial ingredient being an utterly focussed and articulate cultural , historical and political, consciousness. So timely too then.


Best experienced at a sing sitting as all the best albums always are, each track on We Are Sent By History builds up an ecstatic head of steam berore it has run its course. Impossible to select highlights from really, it's a seamless, intense narrative.


At the heart of it all is Shabaka, Shabaka Hutchings, who is building up an astonishing CV for himself through his work with associated acts Sons of Kemet and The Comet is Coming. He's a talent like.


An album that can shift gears whenever it chooses, We Are Sent By History lays down a marker which few other albums will be able to match, Something of a modern classic I'd say. And I've only listened through to it twice.


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