Gorgeous this from a 7 May release, bouncing on an aching introductory instrumental vamp that leads into a brooding Anthony Joseph spoken word poetic testament of a radical vision, a scathing, oblique lament straddling despair at the absence of being accepted to truly belong and the unique perspective of an outsider from the Caribbean coming to London both tracking back to the late-1940s and more recently to the end of the 1980s.
Outside the night came in and we had moved so far away from calling England home
(From the poem at the centre of 'Calling England Home')
Recorded last summer, players on The Rich Are Only Defeated When Running For Their Lives (Heavenly Sweetness) include saxophonists Shabaka Hutchings and Jason Yarde, who produces.
Tracks include a homage to the late Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite. The title is drawn from C. L. R. James' 1938 book The Black Jacobins. SG
Anthony Joseph photo via Heavenly Sweetness
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