An Angel Fell

It's appropriate that it's the German Strut label, home of the recent programme of Sun Ra re-releases, that has helped to resurrect fellow spiritual space-age jazz artists, the saxophonist Idris Ackamoor and his five Pyramids. We Be All Africans emerged in 2016 (reviewed in #119) to considerable acclaim and its successor is arguably better still.

Produced in London by Malcolm Catto with the distinctive signature of his band, The Heliocentrics, the eight long tracks run a worldly gamut of styles and influences. The drumming and guitar motif on the opener, ‘Tinoge’, borrows from Afrobeat; there's a spaced-out dub feel to ‘Land of Ra’; the interplay of Ackamoor's alto sax and Sandra Poindexter's pizzicato violin suggests the Far East on the beautiful ‘Papyrus’; funk rhythms and a snarling guitar underpin ‘Message to my People’. The lilting closer, ‘Sunset’, is ‘a prayer to save our world’ and the mainly minor-key melodies throughout seem to emanate from the groaning earth's core. But this is, above all, a rich, positive and playful album typified by the title-track, with its faux-naive vocal refrain and mesmeric tenor sax, violin, guitar and sound effects. This big bountiful album just keeps on giving with each airing.