By: Stuart Benjamin
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Released on September 25, 2015 via Naim Jazz Records
Occasionally, doing this record critic lark, you come across something that’s a complete joy. Sons of Kemet’s latest long-player is just that, a joy from start to finish. I’m something of an amatuer dabbler in Jazz, ever since Can fooled me into listening to the stuff when I thought I was listening to German-Prog. Ever since then I’ll drop in on the odd jazz album just to keep my hand in, but I don’t claim any strong expertise. However it’s not been a bad year for modern Jazz, I loved Troyka’s Ornithphobia, and Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do is another contemporary jazz release which crosses genres and should be universally lauded.
Sons of Kemet have a fairly simple set-up – saxophone, tuba, two percussionists – but the compositions are anything but simple, taking in as they do, all kinds of influences from Sun-Ra to Fela Kuti. Following up from 2012’s Burn, Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do is a magnificently sprawling fusion of North African/contemporary Western jazz. The quartet of Shabaka Hutchings (tenor sax, clarinets), Theon Cross (tuba), Seb Rochford and Tom Skinner (drums) are an extremely tight unit, their playing is astonishingly virtuoso for such a young group.
Rochford and Skinner provide a solid, driving, rhythmic background that the likes of great drummers such as Tony Allen or Jaki Liebezeit wouldn’t be ashamed of. Together, they are a solid primeval powerhouse, a roaring engine firing on all cylinders. As a counterpoint, Hutchings weaves beautiful sonic pictures with his instruments, attacking sound much like an abstract artist would tackle a canvas. His playing manages to be strong and bold, or sweet and gentle, as the mood of each track allows. But special mention though to Cross’ work on the tuba on which he punches out solid, chewy, and downright funky bass-lines that heroically enlivens the group’s sound – you almost want every bassist to abandon four strings in favour of a big old piece of brass once you hear it.
Together they conjure magic, a foursome of dusty afrofuturist shamans, drawing you into a mysterious twilight ceremony at some incense steeped altar. I haven’t seen them live, but it’s widely reported that their live-shows are incredibly intense – it’s not hard to imagine given the multi-layered, highly textured music on offer here.
It’s overtly political music too, ‘In Memory Of Samir Ahmed’ recalls the story of the young Palestinian teenager shot by Israeli security forces in 2013. But, rather than being something mournful, the music is bursting with energy, the potential energy of a teenager perhaps and also the energy and intensity of having to run for your life each day, the thump of Cross’ low notes something akin to the reports or concussions of bullets or shells. ‘In The Castle of My Skin’ is a nod to George Lamming’s book set against the backdrop of the 1930s struggle for independence in Barbados. There’s also fun to be had here too with the music drawing on the works of the black female science-fiction writer Octavia Butler. In ‘The Long Night Of Octavia E Butler’ and its companion piece ‘Afrofuturism’ the sound draws on all the great elements of the Afrofuturism sound of the 1970s and 80s – It’s a fitting tribute to a writer who worked hard to make a non-white cultural voice available in the often deeply conservative world of sci-fi.
There’s so much of interest in this album, I can’t praise it enough. The repeated playing of it reveals more and more musical strata, as well as providing an inspiration to find out more about the people, situations, and cultural references which provide the inspiration for these tracks. Do yourself a favour and add it to your record collection.
