Pre-pandemic, there was a plan. The plan was for musicians from South Africa and Senegal to travel to London’s in uential Total Refreshment Centre to make an album with musical kindred spirits in the UK. Like so many plans, it had to be adapted. Album features an array of high profile players from the burgeoning nu-jazz scenes in London and Johannesburg, including Theon Cross, Asher Gamdeze, Siya Makuzeni (SPAZA), The Comet Is Coming’s Danalogue & Alabaster dePlume
During the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns, groups of heavy-hitting musicians met for a day of intense recording in their home cities then sent the music to their compadres across the oceans. They returned to the studio a month later to respond to the music they’d been sent. The result is ‘On Our Own Clock’, a sonic testament to trenchant and collaborative creativity which digs into layers of South African jazz, traditional Senegalese instrumental music and London’s rich diaspora-informed musicality. Individually these are powerful strands of music. Collectively, they are super-sized.
The 14 players are individually stellar and include tuba don Theon Cross; Alabaster dePlume, whose album ‘To Cy & Lee’ has been a pandemic panacea to so many people (including Bon Iver, who sampled it); top South African players including Siya Makuzeni (SPAZA), Zoe Molelekwaand Asher Gamedze, who appears on Angel Bat Dawid’s critically-acclaimed ‘The Oracle’ and whose debut album, ‘Dialectic Soul’, received universal acclaim upon its release in 2020; The Comet Is Coming’s Danalogue; Senegal’s highlyrespected Kora player, Tarang Cissoko as well as Balimaya Project’s Yahael Camara Onono. Collectively they’ve ascended their individual brilliance into an album that is variously warm and layered, full of tuff grooves, and steeped in moments of reflective transcendence.