UK jazz figurehead Shabaka Hutchings – formerly of the bands Sons Of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming – has released his first new music since quitting the saxophone at the end of last year. “End Of Innocence” is the first single to be taken from his new solo album Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, released by Impulse! on April 12.
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While the album mostly features Hutchings playing a range of different flutes, “End Of Innocence” marks a return to his first instrument, the clarinet. Watch the Phoebe Boswell-directed video below:
The track also features Jason Moran (piano), Nasheet Waits (drums) and Carlos Niño (percussion). Other contributors to the album include André 3000, Lianne La Havas, Esperanza Spalding, Moses Sumney, Brandee Younger, Floating Points, Laraaji, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Saul Williams and Elucid.
“I invited a bunch of musicians I’ve met and admired over the past few years of touring throughout the United States to collaborate and everyone said yes, which I constantly find breathtaking,” says Hutchings. The album was recorded at the historic Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey, which he says “informed the sound of so many seminal jazz albums that have shaped my musical aptitude. We played with no headphones or separation in the room so we could capture the atmosphere of simply playing together in the space without a technological intermediary.”
You can pre-order Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace here and peruse the tracklisting below. Look out for an in-depth interview with Shabaka Hutchings in the new issue of Uncut, due out in UK shops tomorrow (March 29) or available to order online here.
- End Of Innocence
- As The Planets And the Stars Collapse
- Insecurities
- Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become
- The Wounded Need To Be Replenished
- Body To Inhabit
- I’ll Do Whatever You Want
- Living
- Breathing
- Kiss Me Before I Forget
- Song Of The Motherland