After a Thousand Years

Two years ago, Brooklyn-born musician producer Jneiro Jarel had virtually completed this album, while he was living in Costa Rica. Then he suffered a stroke. But, with the support of crowd funding, he made it back to the US for treatment and now his recovery has reached the stage where the album can be released. It turns out to be a meditative celebration of revival, of survival, of being alive. Tracks like ‘If I Could See Heaven Without Dying’ and ‘Ce-Les-Tial’ really do feel like what it says on their cans. It’s a wall-to-wall instrumental album with a totally uplifting vibe, floating on a sea of gentle electronic bossa and samba rhythms.

The minimalism of the melody lines add to the blissed out meditative feel, never taking the project into the middle of the road. Jarel’s work with Thom Yorke and Damon Albarn, and his own Dr Who Dat? records clearly displays his high-end left-field chops, so this outing is a joy with a lovely mellow feel. The spirituality with which he has invested the music is palpable. Cosmopolitan rather than rooted in a local tradition it may be, but it’s never ersatz fusion or world music soup. It derives its strengths from Jarel’s transcendent vision and his bossa inspiration.