The Comet Is Coming: Tiny Desk

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Since you, dear friends, trust my musical explorations, I know you remember my recent post about Shabaka and the Ancestors: Soul Jazz For The End of Days.

Between Shabaka and the Ancestors, Sons of Kemet, and The Comet is Coming, I dig the musical universe of Shabaka Hutchings in a way I have dug a musical universe in quite a while. While Shabaka and the Ancestors scratch my soul/spiritual-groove-roots-jazz itch, The Comet Is Comet channels my Quarantine angst with electronics, pulsating beats and skreeking skronks and some of the most evocative playing I’ve heard in a while.

The group’s Facebook page says:

“The Comet is Coming to destroy illusions. It will manifest new realities, perceptions, levels of awareness and abilities to coexist. It is a musical expression forged in the deep mystery. It is the overcoming of fear, the embracing of chaos, the peripheral sight that we might summon the fire.

Through the transcendent experience of music we reconnect with the energy of the Lifeforce in hope of manifesting higher realities in new constructs. Because the end is only really the beginning.”

Late last year, the group recorded an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, performing tracks from Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery.

Setlist:

  1. "Super Zodiac"

  2. "Summon The Fire"

  3. "Blood Of The Past"

Musicians:

  • King Shabaka: saxophone;

  • Danalogue: synthesizer;

  • Betamax: drums

  • Visit the official Shabaka Hutchings website.

  • Visit the official website for The Comet Is Coming.

  • Follow The Comet Is Coming at Facebook.

  • Visit The Comet Is Coming’s Bandcamp page.

  • Purchase The Comet Is Coming’s Music at Amazon.

  • Visit Shabaka and the Ancestors’ Bandcamp page.

  • Follow Shabaka and the Ancestors at Facebook.

Shabaka and the Ancestors (Cosmic Soul Jazz For The End Of Days)

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Bandleader Shabaka Hutchings has made a name for himself as an adventurous player in the adventurous London jazz scene. Perhaps most well known for his role in Sons of Kemet, or The Comet Is Coming, Hutchings recently released his sophomore release with Shabaka and the Ancestors, We Are Sent Here By History.

While Hutchings is the constant between the three projects, each has its own unique personality. Shabaka and the Ancestors finds Hutchings collaborating with a group of South African artists. The album’s page at Impulse Records says:

“We Are Sent Here by History’ is a meditation on the fact of our coming extinction as a species. It is a reflection from the ruins, from the burning. a questioning of the steps to be taken in preparation for our transition individually and societally if the end is to be seen as anything but a tragic defeat. For those lives lost and cultures dismantled by centuries of western expansionism, capitalist thought and white supremist structural hegemony the end days have long been heralded as present with this world experienced as an embodiment of a living purgatory.”

The album is out now on Impulse! Records.

Watch the band live at North Sea Jazz 2017:

  • Visit the official Shabaka Hutchings website.

  • Visit Shabaka and the Ancestors’ Bandcamp page.

  • Follow Shabaka and the Ancestors at Facebook.