Oh the pleasures of discovering new shit. You don't know what you've been missing before you try it. And there's too much weird new shit out there to try all of it. Which is why I've fallen so completely for the world of that Albumaday blog. The Brightly Off-Coloured Discophile (as he fashions himself) presents some weird-ass record that I would never ever think of putting on myself, or whose existence my imagination simply would not have been able to conjure up. And then he sends the albums on a space rocket of profanity-laden praise, he verbally wallops you over the head with a sledgehammer until you simply have no choice than to go put on this shit, if only to prove him wrong. It's my new favorite form of prose, and for the sake of family-friendliness I'll try to keep it to a minimum on this blog, but I can't guarantee some of that beautiful filth isn't bleeding through.
Anyway, he's introduced me to a metric fuckton of amazing jazz this year. Some of the albums are like the jazz you think you know, just better. But some of them are unlike anything I've heard before, unlike anything my imagination could have conjured up - and better than both. One of these is jazz trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire's glorious clusterfuck Origami Harvest.
Actually, calling this a clusterfuck is a completely undeserved insult. I was referring to the fact that bandmaster Akinmusire has, alongside your to-be-expected jazz line-up of piano, drums and saxophone, invited to the party not only a classical string quartet, but also rapper Kool A.D. So it's an unlikely meeting of worlds, but there's no trace of indecent behavior here. Rather, each player in this symbiosis makes space for the others, patiently, attentively listening, restraining, adding only where needed. For all its diversity in genre and sounds, the overall theme for me is minimalism. The result is wonderfully soothing, calming and beautiful. B, E, A, utiful. "Americana / the garden waits for you to match her wilderness", with its almost Steve Reich-y string and piano ostinati, its gentle spoken word balsam, its amazing theremin-or-whatever midsection, and its extremely tasteful drumming and trumpet flourishes, is one of my favorite pieces of music in like, god knows how long. Putting this shit on after a long day of work soothes me to the very core of my soul.
Not all of Origami Harvest is as gentle, though. This shit is never boring. Quite the contrary, some heavy duty boundaries are being pushed here. There are sections where the Mivos string quartet sound more like Jonny Greenwood and the London Contemporary Orchestra. And sections where Kool A.D.'s slightly over-woke spoken word fluff becomes actual ballsy rapping. And sections where the whole ensemble ditches the restraint thing and go way out in the leftfield. I'm not jamming with all of it, like the two-minute drum solo intro to "miracle and streetfight", and the loud avant-garde outro to album closer "the lingering velocity of the dead's ambitions" has me feel like OK I guess it's fine that the record is over now. But it's not that the album is an overdose or runs out of ideas - playing this thing from the start again is just as enjoyable, it just makes me realize that there's so much amazing music packed into this thing that it doesn't matter that some of it veers a little far in one way or the other. It makes for, as the record label (more precisely but less entertainingly than Mr. Brightly) puts it, "a surprisingly fluid study in contrast". (On Albumaday you can read that "this shit melts together better than cheese, toast, with a pickle on the side".)
At the heart of it, Origami Harvest is a heavy-ass protest record. And it's not specifically in the lyrics. As mentioned I'm not the hugest fan of Kool A.D.'s semi-improvised delivery of variations over words like "the mind / dimensions / consciousness / infinite", and he says "Americana / America nah" a couple more times than necessary. His additions sound more like another instrument rather than the lyrics to which the rest provide backdrop. No, the record gets its political weight just from its sheer blackness. The album cover, the mixing of whiter-than-white chamber music with the black genres of jazz, funk and hip hop, it's such a statement. Not a confrontation, because it's so fucking beautiful, just merely a statement of existence. It's black people having to be twice as good as white people in order to get half as much in return. In order to even be acknowledged as a person in America and not a criminal suspect, a black man has to be constantly on his toes and constantly perfect, and certainly never in the wrong place, it doesn't help if it's at the right or the wrong time. This album is just so damn good that we "despite its blackness" have to appreciate it. A thread through Akinmusire's career, "Free, white and 21" just whispers names off the ever-growing list of black lives ended by structural racism." This is when Origami Harvest becomes more than just music. But being told that the world sucks in a multitude of different ways doesn't make this a less solid listening experience. It's a wonderful album, which also, if you listen to it in a certain way, can open your mind in painful new ways.
So back to the music. It's all so well done. There's not a lazy beat on this thing. For all its experimentation, it sounds so perfectly precise. When opener "a blooming bloodfruit in a hoodie" transforms from spacious intro to solid groove after over two minutes of airiness, you hear that the groove has been there all along. Every seemingly abstract flourish on the 15-minute monster "miracle and streetfight" is just so on point. And To Kool A.D.'s credit, his timing is impeccable throughout. It takes a quality rapper to put proper rhythm even when the music turns slow and lilting. But the biggest praise is to Akinmusire himself. This rising jazz superstar has won some of the biggest prizes there are in jazz the last few years. Here he proves his worth with creating a challenging vision that he leads to fruition in a way where I suspect a lot of other people would have turned it in to a complete... clusterfuck. The best parts of the album is where he challenges us with contrasts, transitions, surprises. It's a compositional masterpiece and a thrill to listen to.
It's all the more frustrating how much bad and boring jazz there is out there, when you realize that it can also be this good. I'm just realizing, looking back, I've always loved it when jazz has trickled into my life, like out on the vibrant scene in St. Louis, on some of my favorite records like Radiohead's Amnesiac and Susanne Sundfør's Music For People In Trouble, amazing electronic amalgamations from people like Thundercat and Flying Lotus, and more mainstreamly like on Kendick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, where Akinmusire himself features on trumpet. Getting on the jazz wagon this year has been a delightful ride. Shoot me a message if you're keen on more recommendations. But start with Origami Harvest.
Best tracks: "Americana / the garden waits for you to match her wilderness", "a blooming bloodfruit in a hoodie"
Anyway, he's introduced me to a metric fuckton of amazing jazz this year. Some of the albums are like the jazz you think you know, just better. But some of them are unlike anything I've heard before, unlike anything my imagination could have conjured up - and better than both. One of these is jazz trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire's glorious clusterfuck Origami Harvest.
 |
| Now that, my friends, is what I call an album cover. It reminds me of both (1) the best street-art I saw in San Fransisco, and (2) the cover of To Pimp A Butterfly. |
Actually, calling this a clusterfuck is a completely undeserved insult. I was referring to the fact that bandmaster Akinmusire has, alongside your to-be-expected jazz line-up of piano, drums and saxophone, invited to the party not only a classical string quartet, but also rapper Kool A.D. So it's an unlikely meeting of worlds, but there's no trace of indecent behavior here. Rather, each player in this symbiosis makes space for the others, patiently, attentively listening, restraining, adding only where needed. For all its diversity in genre and sounds, the overall theme for me is minimalism. The result is wonderfully soothing, calming and beautiful. B, E, A, utiful. "Americana / the garden waits for you to match her wilderness", with its almost Steve Reich-y string and piano ostinati, its gentle spoken word balsam, its amazing theremin-or-whatever midsection, and its extremely tasteful drumming and trumpet flourishes, is one of my favorite pieces of music in like, god knows how long. Putting this shit on after a long day of work soothes me to the very core of my soul.
Not all of Origami Harvest is as gentle, though. This shit is never boring. Quite the contrary, some heavy duty boundaries are being pushed here. There are sections where the Mivos string quartet sound more like Jonny Greenwood and the London Contemporary Orchestra. And sections where Kool A.D.'s slightly over-woke spoken word fluff becomes actual ballsy rapping. And sections where the whole ensemble ditches the restraint thing and go way out in the leftfield. I'm not jamming with all of it, like the two-minute drum solo intro to "miracle and streetfight", and the loud avant-garde outro to album closer "the lingering velocity of the dead's ambitions" has me feel like OK I guess it's fine that the record is over now. But it's not that the album is an overdose or runs out of ideas - playing this thing from the start again is just as enjoyable, it just makes me realize that there's so much amazing music packed into this thing that it doesn't matter that some of it veers a little far in one way or the other. It makes for, as the record label (more precisely but less entertainingly than Mr. Brightly) puts it, "a surprisingly fluid study in contrast". (On Albumaday you can read that "this shit melts together better than cheese, toast, with a pickle on the side".)
At the heart of it, Origami Harvest is a heavy-ass protest record. And it's not specifically in the lyrics. As mentioned I'm not the hugest fan of Kool A.D.'s semi-improvised delivery of variations over words like "the mind / dimensions / consciousness / infinite", and he says "Americana / America nah" a couple more times than necessary. His additions sound more like another instrument rather than the lyrics to which the rest provide backdrop. No, the record gets its political weight just from its sheer blackness. The album cover, the mixing of whiter-than-white chamber music with the black genres of jazz, funk and hip hop, it's such a statement. Not a confrontation, because it's so fucking beautiful, just merely a statement of existence. It's black people having to be twice as good as white people in order to get half as much in return. In order to even be acknowledged as a person in America and not a criminal suspect, a black man has to be constantly on his toes and constantly perfect, and certainly never in the wrong place, it doesn't help if it's at the right or the wrong time. This album is just so damn good that we "despite its blackness" have to appreciate it. A thread through Akinmusire's career, "Free, white and 21" just whispers names off the ever-growing list of black lives ended by structural racism." This is when Origami Harvest becomes more than just music. But being told that the world sucks in a multitude of different ways doesn't make this a less solid listening experience. It's a wonderful album, which also, if you listen to it in a certain way, can open your mind in painful new ways.
 |
| Ambrose Akinmusire has quickly become something of a jazz superstar. For good reason. |
So back to the music. It's all so well done. There's not a lazy beat on this thing. For all its experimentation, it sounds so perfectly precise. When opener "a blooming bloodfruit in a hoodie" transforms from spacious intro to solid groove after over two minutes of airiness, you hear that the groove has been there all along. Every seemingly abstract flourish on the 15-minute monster "miracle and streetfight" is just so on point. And To Kool A.D.'s credit, his timing is impeccable throughout. It takes a quality rapper to put proper rhythm even when the music turns slow and lilting. But the biggest praise is to Akinmusire himself. This rising jazz superstar has won some of the biggest prizes there are in jazz the last few years. Here he proves his worth with creating a challenging vision that he leads to fruition in a way where I suspect a lot of other people would have turned it in to a complete... clusterfuck. The best parts of the album is where he challenges us with contrasts, transitions, surprises. It's a compositional masterpiece and a thrill to listen to.
It's all the more frustrating how much bad and boring jazz there is out there, when you realize that it can also be this good. I'm just realizing, looking back, I've always loved it when jazz has trickled into my life, like out on the vibrant scene in St. Louis, on some of my favorite records like Radiohead's Amnesiac and Susanne Sundfør's Music For People In Trouble, amazing electronic amalgamations from people like Thundercat and Flying Lotus, and more mainstreamly like on Kendick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, where Akinmusire himself features on trumpet. Getting on the jazz wagon this year has been a delightful ride. Shoot me a message if you're keen on more recommendations. But start with Origami Harvest.
Best tracks: "Americana / the garden waits for you to match her wilderness", "a blooming bloodfruit in a hoodie"
No comments:
Post a Comment