KURATED NO. 227
LATEST RELEASE
Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace by Shabaka
PLAYLISTS
Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace on Spotify and YouTube
BRIEF ESSAY by Shabaka
In a recent issue of The Guardian the musician writes about his Japanese flute – the shakuhachi:
‘The way it makes you feel is unsurpassed by any other instrument’
ONE SONG VIDEO
End of Innocence
REVIEWS
MOJO, Pitchfork, Exclaim!
Shabaka Hutchings has led a jazz explosion in Britain over the past 10 years (Udoma Janssen photo)
SHABAKA’s SHIFT
Exploring a broader sonic and emotional landscape
Rooted in jazz but straying well outside the genre Britain’s Shabaka Hutchings is a big presence in London’s music scene. His reputation stands on the dynamic saxophone play that’s seen him lead a British jazz explosion with award-winning bands like Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming and others.
On New Year’s Day 2023 he stunned fans and contemporaries announcing he was giving up the instrument that propelled him to fame. Looking for creative change he was turning his attention to learning the flute.
“The way I was playing the saxophone in the past inspired … intensity,” he told MOJO magazine in May. “… I was just blowing more air down the instrument and hyping myself up. Which is cool. There’s a need for that, but I feel like there’s a need for all expressions of the emotional landscape.
“The music I’d been making with the saxophone and in the bands was the ultimate exposition of speaking outwardly. But then there’s an inner voice that tells me what needs to happen is a change in texture, a change in emotional landscape or sonic landscape.”
Learning to play as a beginner
In 2019 Hutchings was introduced to the Japanese shakuhachi, an end-blown bamboo flute dating back to the 16th century and used by Buddhist monks in meditation. In a short essay for The Guardian in June he says it’s “… one of the more difficult instruments to play that I own.
“It is daunting to go to an instrument as a complete beginner. It took me a year to make a consistent sound on it,” he said describing the blowing technique as “spitting rice out of your mouth, one grain at a time.”
And he’s been broadening his range with an array of flutes including the Andean quena, the Slavic svirel and the Brazilian pífano. On the new album he also plays clarinet, the first instrument he learned to make music with.
The album
Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace is Shabaka’s first full solo album. But its flute-forward approach was signaled in 2022’s appealing eight-song EP Afrikan Culture.
The new collection is richer in concept and musically fuller. Shabaka recruits an array of notable jazzers – plus New Age progenitor Laraaji – from both the UK and America including Lianne La Havas, Esperanza Spalding, Moses Sumney, Eska, ELUCID, Saul Williams and André 3000.
While some of the album’s musical contours are informed by a New Age aesthetic, it’s just one element of a cohesive and varied sound. Shabaka’s compositions are built on intricate layers with nuanced instrumentation.
The 10 tracks feature instrumentals, spoken word and tunes with minimal lyrics such as Moses Sumney’s falsetto-sung words on Insecurities and Kiss Me Before I Forget which features lovely murmurings by Lianne La Havas. Saul Williams’ spoken word on Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become is in sync with Hutchings’ current contemplative mind set.
The evocative final track – Song of the Motherland – features the spoken word of Shabaka’s father, Anum lyapo. It features an impassioned poem intertwined with harps and his son’s haunting flute. ‘I was your song of unity but now that you are far flung you are withered and dismembered but you shall bloom again, you are not dead’. The Barbados-born Iyapo is a longtime activist for Black rights in his homeland, Africa as well as Britain. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any easily found lyrics of the whole piece.
While I’m unfamiliar with Shabaka’s ouevre, this bold debut album demonstrates the work of an adventurous and exploring composer embracing new musical terrain and, once again, sharing new vistas with his audience.
05 October 2024
Track List
Shabaka says he intended his “oblique” song titles to be read as a poem.
01 End Of Innocence
02 As The Planets And the Stars Collapse
03 Insecurities (feat. Moses Sumney)
04 Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become (feat. Saul Williams)
05 The Wounded Need To Be Replenished
06 Body To Inhabit (feat. ELUCID)
07 I’ll Do Whatever You Want (feat. Floating Points, Laraaji, Esperanza Spalding)
08 Living (feat. Eska)
09 Breathing
10 Kiss Me Before I Forget (feat. Lianne La Havas)
11 Song Of The Motherland (feat. Anum lyapo)
PLAYLIST
On Spotify
On YouTube
A screen grab from the video of End of Innocence, the opening song on Perceive Its Beauty…
https://music.youtube.com/browse/VLPLG-pRIXeCU7ds6C27aCsHctbVNvIkiKNX
