With the dissolution of
Sons of Kemet and all-too-infrequent recordings by
Shabaka and the Ancestors, there is an argument for
the Comet Is Coming as
Shabaka Hutchings' (aka
King Shabaka here) primary project. This longstanding futurist electro-jazz project with synthesist and electronicist
Dan Leavers (
Danalogue) and drummer Maxwell Hallett (
Betamax) has been collaborating since they were students together at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Their collective aesthetic looks at humanity's future through dark, apocalyptic lenses offering cultural and technological critique through sound.
After emerging from the pandemic's lockdown in early 2021, the trio and longtime sound engineer
Kristian Craig Robinson, made a beeline for
Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios. They spent four days recording improvisations guided by collective grit and instinct. They left with incomplete files.
Leavers and Hallett then painstakingly sampled and reworked them over many months. After a thorough once over by
Hutchings and implementation of his input, they assembled this offering.
Most of these 11 jams are in the three- and four-minute range. They mostly juxtapose brute force -- a mid-noughties EDM sensibility that isn't surprising after considering how many house records relied on the jazz harmony and scale books. Opener "Code" comes at the listener with swelling synths and effects that introduce a pulse from a
Tangerine Dream-esque sequencer. The beat is dynamically relentless, recalling
Omar Souleyman's Dabke wedding music.
Hutchings blows aggressively repetitive patterns over cascading rhythms and a wordless vocal chorus. "Technicolour" offers an intro chordal pattern derived from Detroit techno before
Hutchings articulates a knotty melody that exchanges phrases with interlocking rhythm tracks and wonky, zig-zagging synths. "Pyramids" pops and pulses before synth washes and angular bass pulses meet syncopated snares and a high, honking tenor squall that recalls
Hermeto Pascoal at his most expressive. You can't help but move to it. "Frequency of Feeling Expansion" commences with a droning organ sound as Hallett moves into swinging post-bop on the kit. Amid flowing, endlessly blossoming synth vamps,
Hutchings develops an incremental melody and begins to solo around it as the rhythm section (very) gradually ratchets the tension. At just under seven minutes, "Angel of Darkness" is the set's longest and most sinister cut. Its indefinite keyboard and percussion washes create a tense, atmospheric backdrop that
Hutchings confronts with wailing intensity. He is moving against it with his expression and passion. At the halfway mark, a doom-jazz cadence begins swirling as the tenor sax moves in tandem with rockist drumming, and a foreboding caution from the synths. Closer "Mystik" finds Hallett melding hard bop with drum'n'bass on snare and hi-hat.
Leavers lays in eerie, unspecific bleeps, bloops, and washes before
Hutchings' tenor bleats then roars, driving the dark, dubby groove into the stratosphere.
Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam is unlikely to appeal to conservative jazz heads. It will please fans of the hybrid jazz scene in England and draw in many new listeners internationally who will be deeply attracted to its apocalyptic energy, innovative beats, and rowdy abundance. ~ Thom Jurek