Artist: Shabaka
Album: Of the Earth
Genre: Avant-Garde Jazz, Spiritual Jazz
Released: 2026
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
01. A Future Untold (3:24)
02. Those of the Sky (4:48)
03. Go Astray (3:15)
04. Step Lightly (4:24)
05. Call the Power (3:38)
06. Dance in Praise (4:27)
07. Ol' Time African Gods (5:32)
08. Marwa the Mountain (3:27)
09. Light the Way (4:17)
10. Stand Firm (5:00)
11. Space, Time (1:14)
12. Eyes Lowered (3:47)
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U.K.-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser Shabaka Hutchings steps away from Impulse! with the completely solo Of the Earth, a recording he performed, produced, and mixed on his own. Appearing as the first release from his Warp-distributed Shabaka label, it marks his return to the saxophone after a four-year hiatus; he also re-engages the clarinet alongside flutes, beats, keyboards, loops, and more.
2024's flute-driven Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace was a gloriously contemplative, inward-facing affair that featured appearances from first-call jazz players, rappers, and singers. By contrast, Of the Earth is busier, offering contrasting rhythmic paths alongside layered reeds, woodwinds, and rapping. While it would be easy to categorize this as "exotic sound design," it would be incorrect to do so.
Opener "A Future Untold" emerges with pillowy keys, electronics, and a cello, but it is the artist's saxophone that claims the mix's center. It's a slower, multi-textured work that finds him exploring the tenor horn's lower register amid wafting bells and drifting electronics in a gorgeous ballad. It's followed by the spring-like "Those of the Sky," whose interwoven, multi-tracked flutes, clarinet, and sax wind around looped hand percussion in a theme that is as luxuriant as it is musically expansive without engaging dissonance. "Go Astray" is slightly ominous as keys, reverbed percussion, and more fall around his André 3000 rap and illustrates the longtime inspiration of D'Angelo's Brown Sugar on his production aesthetic.
Things heat up on the dynamic, forceful "Call the Power" and "Dance in Praise." The former is centered around rhythmic clapping that interacts with deep, frenetic beats amid hectic call-and-phraseology on flutes over reverbed electronics and ominous atmospheric synths. The latter begins slowly with the sounds of marimbas interacting with piano, harpsichord, and whistling, rumbling, cut-time tom-toms; the flutes and clarinet engage a melody that walks between African and primitive Celtic in spiritual urgency. The breaking drum kit acts as both governor and change agent as the tune moves into dramatic terrain. Percussion rules and guides "Ol' Time African Gods" as syncopated, deep percussive loops meet flutes, tying them together with a circular melody amid pillowy electronics. "Marwa the Mountain" is introduced by bleating flutes and raucous, single-tracked congas before Shabaka brings out the saxophone and takes it over. The dialogue between sax and percussion is intense, clattering, and urgent. "Stand Firm" is another vehicle for tenor saxophone amid junglist beats and rolling hand percussion as layered flutes create an eerie vamp. They interchange with the horn lines as a synth bass and electronics meet the sax's urgent dissonance that tracks motion and echoes into a turbulent wail. Closer "Eyes Lowered" offers a reflective ambient backdrop for Shabaka's instructive rapping with an Afrocentric cultural worldview across physics, astronomy, geography, and history.
Despite utilizing improvisation, formal composition, bracing tonalities, and rhythmic and harmonic surprises, Of the Earth isn't a jazz album, though it's certainly in the spirit. This is a Shabaka album; it resonates with individuality, innovation, and abundant creativity.
Review by Thom Jurek