So where are we speaking of the celestial? Brandee Younger's Somewhere Different was a little bit of a let-down compared with the harpist's work on Force Majeure last year. And while staying with harp Tori Handsley's excellent record for Cadillac was one of the best in a Dorothy Ashby vein. Even better in terms of an all-round compositional conception, less melodious than Tori's, certainly as archetypal chill-out music these mostly short 'Space' pieces, with a whopping 17-minute-plus 'Space 8' at the end is Space 1.8. The work of Caribbean-Belgian pedal harpist-composer Nala Sinephro, an unknown to most before this significant record, also surfaced remixing Nubya Garcia. Afrofuturist in a sense and sitting alongside spiritual-jazz sounds inevitably, characterised by long involving vamps with only glacial chord changes now and then, the album was recorded at home and in a Wanstead, east London, studio in 2018-19 when Sinephro was still in her early-twenties. Other musicians on the album include saxophonist James Mollison who is excellent, guitarist Shirley Tetteh, drummer Eddie Hick from Sons of Kemet, Dwayne Kilvington and Jake Long of Maisha. Go for the long 'Space 8' as it sums up and is characteristic of the whole album most of all.
Stephen Graham
Nala Sinephro, above
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