Unsurprisingly, Serpentwithfeet is not the name of the one posing for the cover of Soil. Josiah Wise, as indicated by his civil registration, grew his voice in Baltimore’s choirs, then while attending the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and now in New York where he finally settled. Yes, it’s around his voice that his art, his writing, his words and even his music are articulated. An impressive and agile voice, able to soar thanks to an incandescent falsetto or to go into more introspective tenor sequences. It’s an eclecticism which finds its roots both in gospel and R&B, and even maybe in pop. But those genres are filtered through an always pretty avant-garde approach which can sometimes throw you off. It’s not surprising then to meet here, for its production, an artist like Katie Gately who has notably worked with Björk and Zola Jesus. Fascinating. © Max Dembo/Qobuz