Lafawndah - The Fifth Season '2020

Tracks list

After a banner year that witnessed Lafawndah release her first album Ancestor
Boy, the debut of her soundsystem Fara Fara, and further incursions into film,
contemporary art and fashion, the ceaseless artist returns with another plot
twist: The Fifth Season.

Inspired by her encounter with author NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy,
Lafawndah both pays homage to and extends further the elemental, emotionally
charged myths of Jemisin’s books. These are stories where a broken heart
can tear apart a continent. In contrast to the precision- tuned industrial
productions of Ancestor Boy, The Fifth Season breathes a different kind of
volatility. Inviting a new degree of spontaneity and freedom into her process,
Lafawndah’s collaborators - Theon Cross (tuba), Nathaniel Cross
(trombone), Valentina Magaletti (percussion), and Nick Weiss (keyboards) -
encircle her confrontational character studies with iridescent, cinematic
chamber-bass moves.

These are torch songs for when it rains ash, creation ballads for when the earth
turns inside out. Ghosts of Art Ensemble of Chicago and Rahsaan Roland Kirk
color the air, yet Lafawndah’s mastery of pop songcraft, vocal production
and razor-honed clarity of purpose cut through. In addition to the Lafawndah
originals, The Fifth Season features interpretations of hybrid-folk godfather
Beverly Glenn Copeland’s “Don’t Despair” and
acid-impressionist prodigy Lili Boulanger’s “Old Buddhist
Prayer.” Album highlight “You, at the End” deploys a poem by
poet-performer Kate Tempest to aching, rift-tearing ends, and french dream-trap
wraith Lala &ce features on “Le Malentendu”.

The Fifth Season anchors Lafawndah as a descendent of forebearers Brigitte
Fontaine and Scott Walker - a born theatric whose acid humor warps the
sub-continental undertow of her emotive storytelling. Lafawndah’s
elementalism on The Fifth Season finds her imagination more agile than ever, and
recent live shows have evinced a drive to push these compositions further out,
deeper, and more aflame. 



Tracklisting:
01. Lafawndah - Old Prayer (4:32)
02. Lafawndah - Dont Despair (5:32)
03. Lafawndah - You, at the End (4:12)
04. Lafawndah - The Stillness (8:06)
05. Lafawndah - Limposteur (4:58)
06. Lafawndah - Le Malentendu (5:04)

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