ANAMIBIA SESSIONS 1: THE WAVE | VINYL RECORD (LP)

Vinyl LP pressing. Melvin Gibbs is the renowned bass player and producer from Brooklyn who's vast resume includes playing with Sonny Sharrock, John Zorn, The Rollins Band, Dead Prez, Caetano Veloso and Femi Kuti amongst others. A solid resume, no doubt, but what is Gibbs doing on Editions Mego? Behind the scenes, those who know Gibbs knew that amongst all this he was also tinkering away at another form of music, one which skirts around the border between music and sound design. The Wave is the first release that reveals this side of Gibbs' creative output to those outside his inner circle. The driving force for this output is Gibbs' multi-decade friendship with acclaimed American video artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa. In 2020. Jafa asked Gibbs to work on the soundtrack for a work in progress called The Wave. The result of this parallel exploration is a deep excursion into a nuanced sound world. The rich tapestry of textures allows one's mind to explore and project within this bed of curious investigation of sound. The bristling, itching, restless, clicking, diving nature of the electronic sound world presented by Gibbs, is abstract and unearthly on the surface but closer listening (which it demands) reveals a very human quality to these austere shapes. It may be a universe apart from his work in the field of jazz but stands high amongst the more experimental work found amongst the Editions Mego catalogue and like Jafa's work in film is a triumph of exploratory forms.