Acclaimed intergalactic and cosmic jazz collective, Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids, are announcing the release of their brand-new album Afro Futuristic Dreams, coming out September 22 on Strut Records. Described as “a speculative, sprawling, and expansive body of work exploring the past, the future and the urgent reality of the present,” the album sees the collective working with drummer and producer Malcolm Catto; he has notably worked with artists such as Madlib, DJ Shadow and the late Melvin Van Peebles.

Recorded between San Francisco and London, in Malcolm Catto’s analogue Quatermass Studio, the new record is said to represent yet another bold and enormous artistic leap for the band, while furthermore engaging in commentary pertaining to celebrating the life and death of ancestors (‘Requiem for the Ancestors’, ‘Re-Memory’), institutional racism and police brutality (‘Police Dem’), and the traversing of hazy psychedelia on the album’s title track and on the experimental closer, ‘Nice It Up’.

Speaking on the album’s conceptual ethos, bandleader and saxophonist Idris Ackamoor, who formed the group in 1971, says: “The compositions of Afro Futuristic Dreams pay homage to the present Afrofuturism movement that has embraced the science-fiction writers Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany, the musician Sun Ra and my own work with the Pyramids. Afro Futuristic Dreams chronicles the historic times we be a-livin’, the past we be feelin’ and the future the planet is headin’ in. It is a testament to survival, unity and honesty to face our collective destiny”.

The album marks the group’s first album since 2020’s Shaman!, while also coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the band’s debut album, Lalibela.

Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids have also unveiled the album’s first single ‘Thank You God’, described as “a 13-minute epic voyaging between the band’s signature spiritual jazz sound, in addition to funk, Afrobeat and choral music.”

Afro Futuristic Dreams will be released September 22 via Strut Records. Pre-orders available from idrisackamoor.bandcamp.com/album/afro-futuristic-dreams