Shabaka's Of The Earth is all about the journey

Of The Earth suggests that revisiting a strong candidate for the title of the most seminal jazz album of all time may also have purged Hutchings of any interest in adhering to the conventions of jazz. Although the saxophone is back on Of The Earth, it’s by no means the lead instrument: mostly, it’s used to add texture and colour. Neither is this another album led by wooden and clay flutes in the style of Hutchings’ solo debut, 2024’s contemplative, new age-y Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace. Instead, the skittery electronic soundscapes that populate Of The Earth present Hutchings as a beat conductor – and on two tracks, a rapper (or a reciter of poetry).

The threadbare beats on Of The Earth sound initially almost offputtingly sketchy, even harsh after the sumptuous surroundings of Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace. Whilst that album was recorded in New Jersey’s hallowed Van Gelder studio (a space virtually oozing jazz lore) with an all-star cast, Of The Earth was assembled by Hutchings alone, often whilst on the move in airports and on tour buses. In place of its predecessor’s meditative calm and graceful spaciousness, Of The Earth can come across somewhat claustrophobic, even abrasive in its dense webs of restless detail.

What the two albums share is a steadfast dedication to defying expectations. Although Perceive Its Beauty… was created in a landmark of jazz history and featured a rollcall of notables of the contemporary jazz scene, it was musically closer to minimalist ambient than, say, the energetic, robust wallop of Hutchings’ former band Sons of Kemet. Of The Earth ventures even further from Shabaka’s expected musical brand.

Jazz and electronics have long had a fruitful coexistence (including the sweaty intensity of Hutchings’ former group The Comet Is Coming), but apart from occasional flashes of more sustained improvisation, the live instrumentation on Of The Earth is typically either spliced up for loops or scattered sparingly to provide melodic and rhythmic motifs. At their most energised, the results can bring to mind a digital funhouse mirror projection of traditional South American dance music (“Marwa The Mountain”), or a less feverishly cacophonous take on the jagged beat artistry provided by Kampala-based Nyege Nyege imprint.

Hutchings has joked that if Outkast’s Andre 3000 can make a flute album, then he’s OK to have a go at rapping. Such spirit of staleness-dodging creative restlessness is to be applauded, but Of The Earth is ultimately easier to admire as an audacious gamble than to love as a fully successful statement: sections of the album feels still under construction, an impression amplified by a handful of fully realised gems, like the hypnotic and haunting highlight “Light The Way”. Hutchings may have ditched jazz orthodoxies but the genre’s preference for the act of becoming over the finished article – journey, not the arrival – is strongly evident on Of The Earth.