LP, Anti-, 2024
featuring Lonnie Holley, Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty, C. Spencer Yeh, Ambrose Akinmusire, Vijay Iyer, Mary Lattimore, Aaron Dilloway, Maja S. K. Ratkje, Kyle Kidd, Raia Was, Alya Al-Sultani, Sovei, justmadnice
“We in the present are constantly injecting ourselves into the past. The gaze of history shapes?it, crystallises?it, collapses it?upon the linear timeline. How do we?keep ourselves tethered to the narrative? When and where do the ancestors speak for themselves? Where is the master clock? Who watches it and who keeps time? If the master clock stops, does time stop? The ways in which we are situated in time reflects in how we talk about, think about and conceptualise the world around us.” (South Sea)
This is not just music. This is quantum physics; temporal alchemy; ancestral communion; vibrational magic; spirit channeling. These sounds & words are ultimately an act of liberating history from the colonial clutches of a linear timeline, whose violent inertia charges forward to a hegemonic and apocalyptic horizon. On The Great Bailout, Moor Mother directly confronts the British empire about its history of slavery, exploitation, and colonization, exposing how the power and wealth plundered through the slave economy have persisted to enrich and uphold the oppressive class structures of modern English society. While the subject matter can be disturbing, the brooding and immersive music becomes a ritualistic space for healing, deep time communication, and the illumination of truth.
Sonically, this suite continuously transforms by folding different time-spaces on top of each other. Funereal keyboards and ethereal harp echoes give way to haunting trumpet improvisations over stark trap beats; choral spirituals emerge from gritty bass drones; spectral strings are set against glitchy samples. At heart this is a collective creation with over a dozen contributors and producers, including Lonnie Holley, Angel Bat Dawid, Ambrose Akimbe, Saint Abdullah, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, Maja Ratkje, C. Spencer Yeh, and Vijay Iyer. Many voices were necessary for this project to embody a collective subjectivity that can sets itself against the individualist narcissism of capitalist society. While creating space for multiple perspectives, Moor Mother becomes the constant presence holding the lantern and guiding us through the shadows of the depths.
Style: Experimental, Poetry, Post-Industrial, Sound Collage, Electroacoustic, Dark Ambient
Vibes: Ritualistic, Sombre, Haunting, Alchemical, Powerful, Heartfelt, Visceral, Passionate, Confrontational, Dark, Brooding, Mournful, Ominous, Intense, Conscious, Dark, Poetic, Spiritual, Disturbing
Themes: History, British Colonialism, Racial Economics, Slavery, Time, Trauma, Black Quantum Futurism, Philosophical, Political, Anti-Colonial
Musical Qualities: Collage, Atmospheric, Electro-Acoustic, Beats, Dense, Dissonant, Noisy
Instrumentation: Processed Vocals, Spoken Word, Electronics, Sampling, Harp, Synthesizers, Trumpet, Percussion, Clarinet
