“A whisper at the edge of infinity, resonating through bone, blood, and memory.”
⭐ Promises – Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra (2021)
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🎵 Listen on Spotify 📺 Watch on YouTube Music 🍎 Listen on Apple MusicThe body of the recording
The body hovers between cautious watchfulness and an oceanic, meditative calm.
A repeating motif keeps attention gently awake while Sanders’s breath opens an expansive interior space.
When Floating Points, aka Sam Shepherd—a neuroscientist-turned-electronic musician and DJ from Manchester—joins forces with jazz legend Pharoah Sanders and the crystalline elegance of the London Symphony Orchestra, something extraordinary is bound to fracture into existence (Pareles, 2021). This collaboration births Promises, an album that transcends mere categorization, landing somewhere between spiritual jazz, ambient minimalism, and electronic poetry.
Shepherd is known for his meticulously sculpted electronic landscapes, influenced deeply by figures like Steve Reich and Brian Eno, while Sanders carries the torch of John Coltrane’s visionary jazz spirituality, evident from groundbreaking works like Karma (1969) and Thembi (1971) (Shteamer, 2021). The London Symphony Orchestra, recording at the iconic AIR Studios, bridges these worlds seamlessly, their strings like tidal currents carrying waves of existential anxiety and post-traumatic calm.
Promises does not unfold—it fractures, crystallizes, dissolves, and reforms with each listening. It’s music sculpted from silence and subtle repetition, reverberating in tension’s quiet tension and release’s emotional release. Shepherd, meticulously arranging and producing every note, elevates the studio into a Glenn Gould-like instrument of sonic artistry (Reynolds, 2021).
Released under David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, known for its curatorial boldness, Promises echoes and reshapes the traditions from which it draws inspiration, crafting an emotional journey impossible to paraphrase yet impossible to forget.
References:
Shteamer, H. (2021, March 26). Pharoah Sanders and Floating Points’ Promises is a rare intergenerational masterpiece. Rolling Stone. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/pharoah-sanders-floating-points-promises-1146965/
Pareles, J. (2021, March 25). Pharoah Sanders and Floating Points Meet in the Middle. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/arts/music/floating-points-pharoah-sanders-promises-review.html
Reynolds, S. (2021, March 25). Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra: Promises review – an extraordinary collaboration. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/25/floating-points-pharoah-sanders-london-symphony-orchestra-promises-review
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