MUSIC

Afro-jazz ancestral healing at the crossroads of tradition and tomorrow

Matsuli Music is proud to announce the first vinyl reissue of Philip Tabane’s Sangoma ("Spiritual Healer") since its 1978 release. Remastered from the original tapes with lacquers cut by Frank Merrit and pressed on 180g heavyweight vinyl at Pallas in Germany, this definitive edition re-asserts the power of one of South Africa’s landmark recordings. Featuring new liner notes by cultural critic Kwanele Sosibo and artwork restoration by Siemon Allen, Sangoma returns in full force through an extended Malombo line-up, fronted by Tabane's spellbinding guitar - ancestral, timeless, and unbound.

Philip Tabane (1934–2018), the mercurial guitar genius of South African music, forged a sound that was as rooted in the spirit world as it was in daily life. With the Malombo Jazzmen of the 1960s, Tabane disrupted Western notions of “jazz,” bringing the resonant rhythm of cowhide malombo drums into the foreground. While outsiders and the uninitiated often reached for labels like “primitive yet sophisticated,” Tabane and his collaborators named it more truthfully: “music of the spirit.”

By the time of Sangoma, Tabane stood at a crossroads. Fresh from a period of three years’ touring in the United States where he graced the Newport Jazz Festival, and played alongside Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders and others, he brushed off comparisons with characteristic self-assurance: “No, I don’t play like Miles. Miles plays like me.” Back home in South Africa, and with a newly signed international distribution deal with WEA Records, he harnessed this momentum into a larger band setting, capturing a rare intensity.

 

The result was Sangoma—an album that bridges contradictions: expansive yet intimate, celebratory yet haunted by exile and return. Tracks such as “Sangoma,” “Hi Congo,” and “Keya Bereka” are not simply performances but living testaments, songs that would remain in his repertoire for decades. Unlike the moody, immersive character of much of his work, here Tabane is on the move—urgent, restless, uncontainable. As he announces on the second track, “Maskanta wa tsamaya” (“something that kicks ass”).

More than four decades on, Sangoma is both an historical document and a timeless invocation. From his home in Mamelodi to the world and back again, Tabane’s spiritual healing endures—raw, electric, and unbowed.

Recorded in 1966, Os Afro-Sambas is a groundbreaking album that fuses traditional samba with Afro-Brazilian spiritual rhythms from candomblé and umbanda. The collaboration between virtuoso guitarist Baden Powell and poet Vinícius de Moraes creates a deeply evocative soundscape, blending haunting melodies, rich harmonies, and intricate arrangements. Featuring the vocal harmonies of Quarteto em Cy, the album honors Bahia’s cultural roots while expanding the expressive possibilities of Brazilian music.

Creatively visionary and groundbreaking on numerous terms, 1973 'Os Tincoãs' revolutionized Brazilian music by harmonizing Afro-religious singing, heavenly vocal harmonies, and frawing on Yoruba mythology, Samba, Capoeira chants and spiritual songs.

Over five decades since its original release, Os Tincoãs (1973) remains a cornerstone of Brazilian music, blending Afro-Bahian traditions with mesmerizing harmonies and poetic lyricism. Now, this timeless masterpiece is being rediscovered by a global audience, celebrated for its cultural richness and profound influence on MPB (Música Popular Brasileira).

Formed in Bahia, the trio—Mateus Aleluia, Heraldo do Monte, and Dadinho—crafted an album that transcends time, fusing Candomblé rhythms, samba, and folkloric storytelling. Tracks like Deixa a Gira Girá and Ojuobá are spiritual journeys, while Cordeiro de Nanã showcases their ethereal vocal interplay. The record stands as a bridge between tradition and innovation, inspiring generations of artists from Caetano Veloso to contemporary global acts.

"Os Tincoãs didn’t just sing—they channeled the soul of Bahia. Their music is a sacred dialogue between past and present." — Music Critic, The Guardian

"A harmony so pure it feels like a prayer. This album is Brazil’s answer to The Staples Singers or Ladysmith Black Mambazo." — Pitchfork

Karma is Sanders' third recording as a leader, and is among a number of spiritually themed albums the Impulse! record label released in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Although it is followed by the brief "Colors", the album's main piece is the 32-minute-long "The Creator Has a Master Plan", co-composed by Sanders with vocalist Leon Thomas. Some see this piece as a kind of sequel to Sanders' mentor John Coltrane's legendary 1964 recording A Love Supreme (whose opening it echoes in a muscular yet lyrical opening "prelude", with Sanders playing over a suspended, non-rhythmic backdrop, before the entrance of a bass figure which underpins much of the piece). It features Sanders on tenor sax, along with two of his most important collaborators, the aforementioned Leon Thomas and pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, as well as a supporting cast of musicians who were major musicians in their own right: flautist James Spaulding; French-horn player Julius Watkins; bassist Reggie Workman, who had played with Coltrane earlier in the 1960s; second bassist Richard Davis; drummer Billy Hart, and percussionist Nathaniel Bettis. While later recorded versions of the tune, some of which featured Sanders and Thomas, became shorter and more lyrical, this original contains extended free instrumental sections, particularly the third section, where the saxophonist demonstrates some of the techniques which build his distinctive sound, including a split-reed technique, overblowing, and multiphonics, which give a screeching sound.

Pharoah Sanders recorded the songs that comprise Thembi in the winter of ’70/’71, in between sessions with Alice Coltrane that would eventually become her masterpiece Journey In Satchidananda LP. The same compelling spirituality that embued Coltrane’s masterpiece with a mood of stately calm and grace pervades Thembi. ‘On Thembi, that was the first time that I ever touched a Fender Rhodes electric piano. We got to the studio in California — Cecil McBee had to unpack his bass, the drummer had to set up his drums, Pharoah had to unpack all of his horns. Everybody had something to do, but the piano was just sitting there waiting. I saw this instrument sitting in the corner and I asked the engineer, 'What is that?' He said, 'That's a Fender Rhodes electric piano.' I didn't have anything to do, so I started messing with it, checking some of the buttons to see what I could do with different sounds. All of a sudden I started writing a song and everybody ran over and said, 'What is that?' And I said, 'I don't know, I'm just messing around.' Pharoah said, 'Man, we gotta record that. Whatcha gonna call it?' I'd been studying astral projections and it sounded like we were floating through space so I said let's call it 'Astral Traveling.' That's how I got introduced to the electric piano.’

Ptah, the El Daoud, recorded and released in 1970, is the third solo album by Alice Coltrane. The album was recorded in the basement of her house in Dix Hills on Long Island, New York. This was Coltrane's first album with horns (aside from one track on A Monastic Trio – 1968 - on which Pharoah Sanders played bass clarinet). Sanders is recorded on the right channel and Joe Henderson on the left channel throughout. Coltrane noted: "Joe Henderson is more on the intellectual side, while Pharoah is more abstract, more transcendental." All the compositions were written by Alice Coltrane. The title track is named for an Egyptian god, Ptah, "the El Daoud" meaning "the beloved". "Turiya", according to the liner notes, "was defined by Coltrane as "a state of consciousness - the high state of Nirvana, the goal of human life", while "Ramakrishna" was a 19th-century Bengali religious figure and also denotes a movement founded by his disciples. On "Blue Nile", Coltrane switches from piano to harp, and Sanders and Henderson from tenor saxophones to alto flutes.

Six Pianos is a minimalist piece for six pianos by the American composer Steve Reich. It was completed in March 1973. Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ – again – emerged in the same year. The piece is scored for glockenspiels, marimbas, metallophone (vibraphone without resonator fans), women's voices and organ. The piece is in four sections, played without a break, marked off by changes in key and meter.

New album of peaceful explorations by The Cosmic Tones Research Trio. This, their second record, maintains the space and long tones that made their debut, "All Is Sound" a successful anecdote to the loud and fast times we live in. It also expands their musical palate with powerful rhythmic elements.

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio have been breaking new ground with healing / meditation music that also honors their roots in Gospel and Blues...and hints at forward looking Spiritual Jazz. Through their Cello, Saxophone, Piano and Flute playing they bring a new sound to the table. Ancient to the future.

A historic meeting point between Ethio-jazz and ambient jazz. Born out of Bristol’s Bloom collective, the eight-piece Afro-jazz band Tezeta sees their 2016 debut album Seventh Place finally issued on vinyl via KLANG TONE RECORDS. Exotic Fender Rhodes lines recalling Hailu Mergia, the psychedelic shimmer of vibraphone and marimba, fiercely jazzy saxophone, and the driving force of contemporary Afrobeat converge into a sound that is both refined and full of fire. The 6/8 rhythms radiate the spirit of Ethio-jazz, while the group’s modern sense of crossover resonates with European ensembles such as Debre Damo Dining Orchestra and Langendorf United. A meditative Afro-jazz gem, and one to recommend also to fans of ambient jazz.

Featuring Xavier Charles, Angharad Davies and more, this long-unheard score by drone master and guru of Tibetan-electronic synthesis Eliane Radigue (1932–) finally resurfaces after six decades. Written in 1963–64 and produced by Rhodri Davies, the work received its long-awaited premiere at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2023. Based on graphic notation derived from the Fibonacci sequence, the score is interpreted by strings, winds, harp, and guitar, summoning Radigue’s signature deep drones without the use of electronics. Layers of sound unfurl with subtle fluctuations and spiral resonances, offering an experience at once hushed and cosmic in scope. A prophetic precursor to her later Occam series, and an elemental masterpiece that awakens a prayer-like focus at the very source of Radigue’s art.

The Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra was created in 1971 by an “old hand” of French free jazz, François Tusques. Free Jazz, was also the name of the recording made by the pianist and other like-minded Frenchmen (Michel Portal, François Jeanneau, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and Charles Saudrais) in 1965. But, six years later Tusques had had his fill of free jazz. After having wondered, together with Barney Wilen (Le Nouveau Jazz) or even solo (Piano Dazibao and Dazibao N°2), if free jazz wasn’t a bit of a dead end, Tusques formed the Inter Communal, an association under the banner of which the different communities of the country would come together and compose, quite simply. If at first the structure was made up of professional musicians from the jazz scene it would rapidly seek out talent in the lively world of the MPF (Musique Populaire Française).{French Popular Music, ndlt} As with L’Inter Communal a few years earlier, Le Musichien follows on from the group of varying musicians that Tusques had conceived as a “people’s jazz workshop”. In 1981, at the then famous Paris address, 28 rue Dunois, the pianist sang with his partner Carlos Andreu an “afro-Catalan tale”. Over a slow bass line (exceptional work from Jean-Jacques Avenel) backed by percussion from Kilikus, saxophones (Sylvain Kassap and Yebga Likoba) and trombone (Ramadolf) which presented a myriad of constellations. The sky has no limits, let’s make the most of it. The following year, at the ‘Tombées de la Nuit’ festival in Rennes, bassist Tanguy Le Doré would weave with Tusques the fabric on which would evolve an explosive “brotherhood of breath”: Bernard Vitet on trumpet, Danièle Dumas and Sylvain Kassap on saxophones, Jean-Louis Le Vallegant and Philippe Le Strat on… bombards. With hints of modal jazz inspired by Coltrane or Pharoah Sanders, the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra is an ecumenical project which speaks to the whole world.

1971 REVOLUTIONARY SPIRITUAL AFRO JAZZ FROM EXILE Matsuli Music presents soul, spirituality and avant-garde jazz from South African political exile Ndikho Xaba. Its rarity has until now served to obscure both its beauty and its historical significance. Making profound links between the struggle against apartheid and the Black Power movement in the USA Ndikho Xaba and the Natives is arguably the most complete and complex South African jazz LP recorded in the USA. It stands out as a critical document in the history of transatlantic black solidarity and in the jazz culture of South African exiles. This reissue from Matsuli Music brings this collectors’ treasure back into print for the first time since 1971. Ndikho Xaba and the Natives opens a fluid channel of sonic energy that courses between two liberation struggles and two jazz traditions, making them one. It is a critical statement in the history of transatlantic black solidarity, unifying voices stretching from San Francisco to Johannesburg. There is no other recording or group in which the new jazz spirituality of the late 1960s is so fully blent with an African jazz tradition. The limited edition vinyl edition is presented with re-mastered sound in a gatefold sleeve containing unseen photographs and concert bills from Ndikho Xaba’s personal archive together with a personal recollection from Plunky Branch and extensive sleeve-notes written by Francis Gooding. The CD version reproduces this new content in a 24 page booklet as well including two additional tracks taken from a hard to find single released by Ndikho Xaba’s band African Echoes.

Joshua Abrams’ Chicago-based avant-garde collective Natural Information Society, also known for their collaboration with Bitchin Bajas, return with a long-awaited repress of their 2024 masterpiece Since Time Is Gravity on eremite records. Anchored by the deep pulse of the guimbri and the sustained tones of the harmonium, the music interweaves heavy rhythmic foundations with the spiritual cry of the saxophone, uniting minimalism and spiritual jazz. The expanded ensemble surges in spirals or drifts in hushed stillness, creating an immersive experience that seems to transform time itself. Rooted in the traditions of Chicago jazz, infused with the trance-like mysticism of North African folk, and sharpened by a contemporary minimalist sensibility, this album stands as a pinnacle of truly living music.

What exactly is Spiritual Soul anyway? At the confluence of congas and Fender Rhodes, the Civil Rights Movement and vegetarianism, jazz-funk and gospel-soul, a Black-to-the-land movement in song sprung forth in the 1970s. Where Rotary Connection, Alice Coltrane, and Roy Ayers dared to fly, others flapped their free love wings, transcending the trappings of Top 40, sexuality, and capitalism at once.

On Eccentric Spiritual Soul, Numero digs deep into the private annals of the Black music diaspora, unearthing ten heavenly grooves for the tranquility bound listener. From Kalima's existential boogie banger "Where Is The Sunshine" to Fathers Children's proto-dub workout "Linda Movement," Lenny White's Bitches Brew comedown "Sweet Dreamer" to Spunk's Balaeric rainstick R&B "La Bimini," Eccentric Spiritual Soul has everything you need for your next incorporeal awakening. Flute not included, but encouraged.

Deeply resonant spiritual music transmitted via piano, organ, and harmonium by beloved composer and Ethiopian Orthodox nun Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru.

Church of Kidane Mehret collects all the musical work from Emahoy’s 1972 private press album of the same name, alongside two additional unreleased piano recordings, exploring Emahoy’s take on “Ethiopian Church Music.”

Recording herself in churches throughout Jerusalem, Emahoy engages directly with the Ethiopian Orthodox musical liturgy. For the first time, we hear Emahoy on harmonium and massive, droning pipe organ, alongside some of her most moving piano work.

“Ave Maria” is one of our favorite pieces Emahoy ever recorded, her chiming piano reverberating against ancient stone walls. Her familiar melodic lines take on new resonance when played through the harmonium on “Spring Ode - Meskerem.” Two towering organ performances comprise the B Side, combining Emahoy’s classical European training with her lifelong study of Ethiopian religious music.

Nowhere is Emahoy’s unique combination of influences more apparent than on “Essay on Mahlet,” a meditative slow burner in which Emahoy interprets the free verse of the Orthodox liturgy note for note on the piano. This revelatory piece, alongside the dramatic piano composition “The Storm,” comes from another self-released album, 1963’s Der Sang Des Meeres. Only 50 copies were ever produced (and no cover). One of the only known copies was saved from the trash and shared with Mississippi by a fellow nun at Emahoy’s monastery when we visited for Emahoy’s funeral in March of 2023.

We are proud to work with the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation to bring you these rare spiritual recordings in what would have been the artist’s 102nd year.

Available in black and clear vinyl editions. Old-school tip-on jacket with metallic silver foil stamping along with a 12-page booklet featuring extensive liner notes from scholar and pianist Thomas Feng.

London based Caribbean-Belgian composer, producer, and musician Nala Sinephro steps out on her own with a deeply personal debut album and her first release with Warp Records.

Shipping begins September 21: an improvised ambient/experimental document born in Kyoto’s Imadegawa. The collaborative work IMA DE GAWA GINGA by CazU-23 & Sinkichi now arrives on cassette. CazU-23, an artist who has explored a unique sonic world through solo and band activities, employs guitar and monosynth to striking effect, while Sinkichi—a veteran DJ/producer active since the dawn of Kyoto’s club scene—works fluidly with modular synths and field recordings. Recorded in a single, unbroken session at Softribe Studio, the album interweaves the plucked tones of a 1970s Teisco guitar, shimmering modular layers, and environmental sounds gathered from the city, achieving a quietude and spaciousness akin to the night air. Subtle noise and breath-like resonances evoke layers of time and fragments of memory, with a sense of prayer offered as homage to the late ambient DJ OPERON. A meditative minimal new age/ambient work, where city and nature, present and memory converge into a small yet luminous galaxy.

Recorded in concert at the University of Sheffield in March 2025, Reality Is Not A Theory is the first collaboration between Mark Fell and Pat Thomas. Major figures in British experimental music since the 1990s, Fell and Thomas have developed their rigorous practices from radically different backgrounds and perspectives: where Fell’s singular take on synthetic abstraction emerged from Sheffield’s electronic underground, Thomas is a virtuoso improvising pianist steeped in jazz and modernist art music who has simultaneously worked with sampler-based electronics for decades. As the record’s wonderfully academic subtitle explains, we are presented here with two sides of ‘algorithmic and improvised music for computer and piano’, exemplifying both players’ insatiable search for new (and sometimes uncomfortable) playing situations.

The performance begins with Fell’s electronics close to the timbres of acoustic percussion, attacks that suggest wood, metal or glass threaded along a rapid pulse while Thomas focuses on the lowest registers of the piano, deadening the strings. As Fell’s electronics start to ring out and occupy more harmonic space, Thomas turns to wide, repeated clusters, which slowly expand into patterns of chords. Like in his recent solo recordings and his trio work with Joel Grip and Anton Gerbal, Thomas’ playing combines extreme dissonance with a deep lyrical sense. Fell’s work gradually shifts its focus toward drum sounds, drawing on the microtemporal processes that have characterized his practice in recent decades. Heard together with Thomas’ probing piano, the computer sounds call up unexpected associations with the klangfarben antics of improv drummers like Paul Lovens or Tony Oxley. Throughout its second half, the music grows increasingly frenetic, as Thomas sounds out rapid, irregularly repeated figures and beautifully sour chords in the upper register, while Fell’s percussion develops into angular pan-pipe-like feedback and waves of glissandi.

With great confidence and patience, Fell and Thomas often let their individual contributions remain rhythmically distinct and unsynchronised, allowing unexpected correspondence and coincidence to guide the music’s development. Recorded in a hall named after Sheffield steel manufacturer and Master Cutler Mark Firth, the location might suggest a model for understanding how Fell and Thomas interact here: two workers in the same workshop, each immersed in their own part of the production process. Arriving in a striking sleeve designed by Mark Fell, with liner notes by Francis Plagne, Reality Is Not A Theory is an invigorating document of the meeting of two mavericks of contemporary music.

Vibe Ride is the sixth release of Adam Rudolph's Hu Vibrational project and marks his 60th release as a leader or co-leader.

“With every record, the goal is to explore new creative territory,” explains Rudolph. Vibe Ride continues a deeper exploration of a trance-like groove and a conceptual framework known as Sonic Mandala. This album marks the most complete realization of that idea, partly due to the group's experience touring beforehand. That time on the road helped to refine ideas and strengthen musical chemistry. The recording process unfolded organically—likely due to the long-standing collaboration within ensembles like Go: Organic Orchestra and Moving Pictures, where the musicians have developed a deep familiarity with the shared musical language.

Sonic Mandala refers to a musical approach distinct from traditional linear structures of theme and development. Found in cultures across the globe, it may represent one of the oldest forms of musical expression—predating written history by tens of thousands of years. Today, it is most vividly preserved in the music of the Ituri Forest peoples (Aka, Baka, Ba Benzele, Mbuti), whose sound traditions revolve in cyclical, orbit-like patterns. Vibe Ride seeks to bring that ancient sense of circularity into a contemporary—and perhaps even futuristic—context.

The ensemble of Vibe Ride—Alexis Marcelo, Jerome Harris, Harris Eisenstadt, Neel Murgai, Tim Kieper, and Tripp Dudley—brings exceptional creativity and skill to the project. While grounded in the sonic languages of today, their performance channels an ancient vibrational lineage, connecting with ancestral sound makers who were attuned to the rhythms of the sun, moon, stars, and seasons. Human beings have always been deeply responsive to natural cycles.

Like a mandala, where the circle reveals itself as a spiral—always returning, but never to the exact same point—the Sonic Mandala musical experience spirals through motion. Refined signal patterns emerge through overtone-rich instrumentation. The groove becomes a threshold, shifting the listener from passive observation into active, even transcendent, participation. With open ears and an open mind, the sound spirals inward—toward a primal center—and outward into the cosmos. When this elevated state is shared among participants, it creates what mystics describe as resonance.

Vibe Ride thrives on the distinctive sonic voices of its players, interwoven with care and nuance into the compositions. Hu Vibrational merges elements of world music, electronica, and improvised jazz into something both funky and spiritual, intense and soothing.

Using signature techniques of organic orchestration, layered arrangement, and electronic processing, the compositions are sculpted from percussion, electronics, and ethereal textures. Rhythmic foundations drawn from diverse traditions serve not as endpoints, but as building blocks. As the saying goes, “Orchestration is the key.” In shaping the sound, the aim was to discover fresh ways of balancing structure and sonic color. As Don Cherry once said: “The swing is in the sound.”

New album of peaceful explorations by The Cosmic Tones Research Trio. This, their second record, maintains the space and long tones that made their debut, "All Is Sound" a successful anecdote to the loud and fast times we live in. It also expands their musical palate with powerful rhythmic elements.

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio have been breaking new ground with healing / meditation music that also honors their roots in Gospel and Blues...and hints at forward looking Spiritual Jazz. Through their Cello, Saxophone, Piano and Flute playing they bring a new sound to the table. Ancient to the future.

Portland's finest practitioners of Great Black Music offering to the planet! All Is Sound could not be a more apt title for this. Through saxophone, cello, piano, and flutes The Cosmic Tones Research Trio created a truly beautiful record. All Is Sound breaks new ground. At its heart, it's healing/meditation music, but the Gospel and Blues roots are in there too...as well as hints of forward-looking Spiritual jazz. As sincere a record as you could ever hope for. Music is indeed the healing force of the universe.

Fire of God’s Love is the legendary 1973 album by Australian nun Sister Irene O’Connor—a sincere, soulful, and unconsciously psychedelic song sequence devoted to self-reflection and awakening the spirit within. A collection of original folk spirituals written by and channelled through O’Connor with guitar, electric organ, drum machine and her angelic voice, the album was recorded and mixed in an astonishingly futuristic fashion by fellow nun and recording engineer Sister Marimil Lobregat. This edition from Freedom To Spend is the first authorized reissue of this holy grail since 1976; the album restored and remastered with love from the best available sources by Jessica Thompson.

An amazing document of the life experiment that was the Organic Music Society. This super quality audio, recorded by RAI (the italian public broadcasting company) in 1976 for television, documents a quartet concert focused on vocals compositions and improvisations. Here, Don Cherry and his family-community’s musical belief emerges in its simplicity, with the desire to merge the knowledge and stimuli gained during numerous travels across the World in a single sound experience. Don's pocket-trumpet is melted with the beats of the great Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, the Italian guitar of Gian Piero Pramaggiore, and the tanpura drone of Moki. A pure hippie aesthetic, like in an intimate ceremony, filters a magical encounter between Eastern and Western civiliziations, offering different suggestions of sound mysticism: natural acoustics in which individual instruments and voices are part of a wider pan-tribal consciousness. A desert Western landscape marries Asian and Latin atmospheres. Indigenous contributions with berimbau explorations find fossil sounds of rattles and clap-hands invocations. Influences of Indian mantra singing are combined with eternal African voices or with folkish-Latin guitar rhythms , while flute and drums evoke distant dances. In the Organic Music everything becomes an act of devotion and love, an ecstatic dwell in the dimension of a sacred free-rejoice.

For years, Takuro Okada has carried a quiet question: how can a Japanese musician honor the music of African Americans without simply borrowing it? That search shapes his new album Konoma, a work guided by the idea of “Afro Mingei.” The Tokyo guitarist, producer, and bandleader has lived inside this tension since childhood, drawn to blues, jazz, and funk records that nourished him, yet hesitant in the face of the histories they hold. The concept of Afro Mingei, which Okada first encountered in an exhibition by artist Theaster Gates, gave him a way forward. Gates connected Black aesthetics with Japanese folk craft, both rooted in resistance — “Black is Beautiful” defying racism, the Mingei movement preserving everyday beauty against industrial erasure. That kinship became the compass for Konoma, a record attuned to echoes across cultures and time.

Konoma holds six originals and two covers, all shaped by this dialogue. The elegantly unhurried “Portrait of Yanagi” drifts like a standard half-remembered from another era, while the brief but potent “Galaxy” gestures toward Sun Ra’s late 1970s electric organ experiments, the fractured propulsion of Flying Lotus’s early beat tapes, and the shadowy atmospheres of trip-hop. Okada’s choice of covers sharpens the conversation: Jan Garbarek’s “Nefertite” shimmers with the cool austerity of 1970s ECM, reframing Europe’s own search for identity inside jazz, while Hiromasa Suzuki’s “Love” channels the electric vibrancy of 1970s Japanese fusion, when musicians fused psychedelia, funk, and folk into a distinctly local dialect. Together, they anchor Konoma in a lineage of artists who bent borrowed forms toward something new.

Okada’s life has been shaped by such crossings. He grew up in Fussa, where the Yokota U.S. Air Force base loomed large, learning guitar in rowdy clubs for American servicemen while teaching himself recording at home. That hybrid education led to collaborations with Haruomi Hosono, Nels Cline, Sam Gendel, James Blackshaw, and Carlos Niño, and to a body of work spanning film soundtracks, collaborative projects, and exploratory solo albums. Earlier this year, Temporal Drift released The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line, which features selections from Okada’s expansive archive of recorded material, cementing his reputation as one of Japan’s most adventurous contemporary musicians. With Konoma, co-released by ISC Hi-Fi Selects and Temporal Drift, Okada delivers his most personal and expansive statement yet: a meditation on connection, influence, and the beauty that survives across cultures.

- Words by Randall Roberts