Shabaka Dives Into the Feeling on "End of Innocence"

Reading over the details of Shabaka's forthcoming album Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace was like moving through each level of the Vince McMahon reaction meme: accomplished instrumentalist, debut full-length LP, with a star-studded guest list featuring André 3000, Moses Sumney, Esperanza Spalding, Armand Hammer's ELUCID, Brandee Younger, Floating Points, Laraaji, Saul Williams and more, recorded at the historic Rudy Van Gelder studio. We'd also be remiss not to mention how sessions for the album, out April 12 via Impulse!, were conducted communally with no headphones or separation in that legendary live room.

On these details alone, the follow-up to 2022's Afrikan Culture EP has all the makings of an immensely special record, and our perception and acknowledgement begins with "End of Innocence." In a release, Shabaka details how a multitude of flutes have come to occupy a place in his "musical inner landscape" that may have once been dominated by saxophone. On the album's opening track, it's a fellow woodwind in the clarinet — the first instrument he learned to play — feeling out a plaintive lead line atop Jason Moran's sombre piano figure, at times pushing its range in gracefully ducking between slowly unfurling keys and delicate drums and percussion. In an accompanying Phoebe Boswell-directed video, Shabaka dives into this feeling, briefly miming his own woodwind playing before mirroring the movement of his limber melody in each moment of floating, sinking and treading water.