Shabaka Hutchings has announced a new album as Shabaka, Of the Earth, due out March 6 via Shabaka Records (pre-order). The album comes after Shabaka traded his sax for woodwinds on 2024’s ambient jazz album Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace and two similar EPs, but Of the Earth finds him picking the sax back up and lead singles “A Future Untold” and “Marwa The Mountain” are in livelier spiritual jazz territory.
“D’angelo’s Brown Sugar was the first CD I bought and it sparked a lasting curiosity about the emotional possibilities allowed by the self produced and performed album,” Shabaka says. “This record is my celebration of freedom in creative self expression. Before the pandemic I could only play the clarinet and saxophone and knew nothing about music production (or how to play the flute), so this has been a journey of learning and a reflection on the music that’s been created as a result.”
Of the Earth also finds Shabaka pulling a reverse André 3000 and rapping for the first time in his career. We’ll have to wait to hear that, but in the meantime, listen to the two blissful lead singles below.
Shabaka is coming to the US to play Knoxville, TN’s Big Ears festival, where he’ll do his own set and a collaborative set with Thurston Moore, and right before that he’s playing his own shows at Philly’s Solar Myth on March 25 and NYC’s Knockdown Center on March 26. The Knockdown show is a stacked bill with Irreversible Entanglements and Tom Skinner (of The Smile and Shabaka’s now-defunct band Sons of Kemet).
Tracklist
1. A Future Untold
2. Those Of The Sky
3. Go Astray
4. Step Lightly
5. Call The Power
6. Dance In Praise
7. Ol’ Time African Gods
8. Marwa The Mountain
9. Light The Way
10. Stand Firm
11. Space Time
12. Eyes Lowered