Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds (FPE)
Nicole Mitchell
Released May 2017
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2017
Top 10 NPR Jazz Albums 2017
YouTube:
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About:
Blurring the edges between philosophy and mysticism, modern art and
radical political critique, the Afrofuturist impulse has been a cultural force
since the mid-20th century. That’s when jazz visionary Sun Ra and his Arkestra
first touched down on Planet Earth and told humanity that space (outer and
inner) is indeed the place. It’s an impulse that in the new millennium has only
grown more diverse thanks to a proliferating number of African-American
musicians who use Afrofuturism as a platform to launch their own, unique
visions. Among these explorers are cosmic jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington,
post-everything beat maker Flying Lotus, R&B cyborg Janelle Monáe and
dystopian noise-rappers Death Grips.
The innovative, boundary-smashing work of Nicole Mitchell, whom Chicago Reader
music critic Peter Margasak has hailed as the “greatest living flutist in
jazz”, has contributed new life to Afrofuturism in the 21st Century. A
voracious reader of science fiction since her youth (Afrofuturist author
Octavia E. Butler in particular has exerted a heavy influence on her music),
the musician, composer and educator has released a string of albums that fold
themes centered around technology, spirituality, race and gender into
profoundly exploratory jazz that oftentimes reaches far beyond the genre in
which it is rooted. Her vast sound can and often does encompass contemporary
classical, globally oriented fusion, gospel, spoken word, funk-inspired groove
research and even brittle shards of avant-rock.
On Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds (FPE Records; May 5), her second and
latest full-length for the Chicago-based FPE Records, she uses science fiction
to pose the question, “What would a world look like that is truly egalitarian,
with advanced technology that is in tune with nature?”
Recorded in May of 2015 at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, it features a
new version of her Black Earth Ensemble. In addition to longtime collaborators
Renée Baker (violin), Tomeka Reid (cello, banjo), Alex Wing (electric guitar,
oud) and Jovia Armstrong (percussion), Mitchell brings in Tatsu Aoki (bass,
shamisen, taiko) and Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi). Also in the mix is Chicago
artist, scholar and poet avery r young, who brings the composer’s lyrics to
life with visceral humanity.
Mandorla Awakening II explores what Mitchell describes as the “collision of
dualities.” The work chronicles the journey of a couple as they find themselves
navigating between two civilizations: the World Union, a crumbling society
rampant with injustice and inequality, and Mandorla, a utopia where
spirituality, technology and nature coexist harmoniously. The former is
masculine, hierarchical and violent while the latter woman-centered,
egalitarian and peaceful.
“I’m African-American, and I have a lot of anxiety living in this world today,”
Mitchell explains. “Mandorla isn’t an altogether ‘hopeful’ piece, though
optimism peaks through at times. I tend to be pretty optimistic, because I
believe humanity has the power to co-create its future. Yet it does seem lately
that my feelings about living in the U.S. is tainted by the failure and closing
of so many schools populated by poor people and people of color, the intense
lack of employment in our major cities, and the intensifying of violence on Black
men.”
But despite these realities, Mitchell isn’t a dystopian by a longshot. She
remains steadfast in her Afrofuturist utopianism, and Mandorla Awakening II can
be seen as her attempt to will it into existence for the sake of all of us. As
Mitchell points out, “Someone once wrote me something that helps me to keep
going. He said, ‘Keep playing music, because while you are playing, your vision
of a positive alternative future lives, even if it’s only until the song is
over.’”
Track Listing:
1. Egoes War (Nicole Mitchell) 07:36
2. Sub Mission (Nicole Mitchell) 05:35
3. The Chalige (Nicole Mitchell) 02:49
4. Dance of Many Hands (Nicole Mitchell) 05:48
5. Listening Embrace (Nicole Mitchell) 12:06
6. Forest Wall Timewalk (Nicole Mitchell) 04:54
7. Staircase Struggle (Nicole Mitchell) 09:48
8. Shiny Divider (Nicole Mitchell) 08:06
9. Mandorla Island (Nicole Mitchell) 10:22
10. Timewrap (Nicole Mitchell) 07:15
Personnel:
Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble
avery r young: vocals
Kojiro Umezaki: shakuhachi
Nicole Mitchell: flute, electronics
Renée Baker: violin
Tomeka Reid: cello, banjo
Alex Wing: electric guitar, oud
Tatsu Aoki: bass, shamisen, taiko
Jovia Armstrong: percussion
Nicole Mitchell: Mandorla Awakening: Emerging Worlds was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The MCA presentation was in conjunction with the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and contributes to the legacy and continuing bold and exciting directions that the AACM has charted for decades. Emerging Worlds was presented as a multi-arts project featuring the experimental video of Ulysses Jenkins. The project was supported in part by the Doris Duke Foundation.
Mandorla
Awakening: Emerging Worlds is a recording of the world premiere performed at
the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago on May 2, 2015, as part of the
Creative Music Summit
Recorded May 2, 2015, at MCA stage, by Caleb Willitz
Mixed by Dorian Gehring, Fox Hall Studios
Mastered by Shelly Steffens, Chicago Mastering Service
Artwork by Damon Locks
Layout by Leticia Arioli
Review:
Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds is a virtual musical universe. It was commissioned by the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and recorded there during its world premiere in 2015, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the AACM. This work is another wonderfully provocative entry in Mitchell’s Afro-Futurist aesthetic. Here, boundaries between literature, philosophy and mysticism, politics and art, coexist in a multivalent dialogue. It also offers, unintentionally, a poignant reminder as to why the AACM’s purpose remains vital. The record’s title references the second performance work based on Mitchell’s sci-fi novella of the same name. The Black Earth Ensemble features her longtime associates — cellist Tomeka Reid, violinist Renée Baker, Alex Wing on electric guitar and oud, and percussionist Jovia Armstrong — alongside new ones: Tatsu Aoki (bass, shamisen, taiko) and Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi), as well as poet/spoken word artist Avery R. Young, who appears on three of the last four tracks.
While the overall narrative concept concerns a fictional place in a future world, the music is an active exploration of dualities, the concepts of the utopian and the dystopian — not as binary poles of opposition but as interacting, evolving, and adaptable entities. The liner notes contain her storyline, and the lyrics to her songs that further these notions. Truthfully, none of this is necessary to enjoy Mitchell’s music. Carefully mapped out over 74 minutes, Mitchell doesn’t merge East and West so much as offer them as parts of a single conversation. Free jazz, contemporary classical music, blues, folk, gospel, and abstract folk articulations slip in and out, they weave through and rub against one another offering openness and engagement without sacrificing their sonorous identities. In opener “Egoes War,” gongs, metal percussion, and droning ambience create a rhythmic foundation for a funky bassline and psychedelic wah-wah guitar before Mitchell’s flute winds into the swirling dialogue. In “Sub Mission,” space bridges the tension between shamisen, violin, and shakuhachi amid sporadic percussion. In “Dance of Many Hands” Mitchell’s and Umezaki’s flutes play a lithe, bright, contrapuntal melody as Wing’s guitar delivers a Nigerian hi-life vamp, supported by circular rhythms on a melange of percussion instruments. “Listening Embrace” is a mini-suite. Cello and drums lay down a hip-hop rhythm as Mitchell’s flute captures the groove. Strings answer and bring in the shakuhachi for an atmospheric section before a second theme emerges to open the way for solos by flute, electric guitar, and violin. On the dynamic tracks “Staircase Struggle” and “Timewrap” (both vocal numbers where Young recites/sings Mitchell’s words), blues, funk, and gospel themes alternately engage with more abstract arrangements, polyrhythms, and instrumentation as cultures collide, speak, accept, and ultimately balance one another. Mitchell doesn’t merely explore on Mandorla Awakening II, she asserts the possible in a language so various, ranging, and utterly beautiful, she cannot help but communicate meaning to anyone willing to encounter it.
Thom Jurek (AllMusic)
