PRE-ORDER
By placing an order for this item you acknowledge that shipping of this item is estimated to start on or around release date: NOVEMBER 14th 2025. Please keep in mind that, due to the international supply chain shortages and global shipping delays, all pre-order dates are subject to change. If you order this with other available items, your order will dispatch once all items are available. If your pre-ordered items are holding your package from arriving please email us with a request to ship the in-stock items and pre-orders when they become available, additional shipping charges will apply.
DESCRIPTION
“Further proof that Antibalas is the best Afrobeat group in the West” - Uncut With Hourglass, Antibalas returns to its instrumental roots. Previous albums featured lyrics that addressed topics like patriarchy, climate change, militarism, late stage capitalism, oligarchy, white ethnonationalism, and the genocide of Native Americans. In this album the group rearticulates these themes, however speaking through melody and rhythm. “Once a song has lyrics, everyone who doesn’t speak that language is on the outside. We use rhythm and melody to translate the emotions in the album and make it universally accessible,” explains the co-producer/founder Martin Perna. The new album draws on compositions written by several current and emeritus members of the group. “Hourglass” begins with a plaintive and ecstatic tenor saxophone solo before digging into an intense 12-8 groove. The group pivots with “Lo-Life” highlighting the group’s ability to swing a lá Machito or the 1970s Ghanaian dance band leaders like Guedu Blay-Ambolley. Others like “Solace”, “Escape” and “Lo Ceiba,” conjure echoes of the classic Lagos afrobeat sound, albeit spoken with a Brooklyn accent. “Oasis”, the album's finale, is a step into a psychedelic unknown future, with a deep sense of liberatory funk eternally at its core.
Available in Black or Colored vinyl
TRACKLIST:
-
Solace
-
Lo Life
-
Escape
-
Hourglass
-
La Ceiba
-
Oasis