For my previous Album of the Week, earlier this May, I selected one of my favourite collaborations, between Jamie xx and Gil Scott-Heron, for We’re New Here. It’s a crossover between a jazz legend, and modern electronic powerhouse. On the surface, my pick for this week is a very similar collaboration; dig a bit deeper, though, and you’ll find that in most ways it’s very different. Perhaps the biggest similarity is that this, like We’re New Here, is also one of my favourite collaboration albums.
My Album of the Week is the incredible three-way partnership, Promises, written and produced by Floating Points (a.k.a Sam Shepherd), and performed by himself, saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra.
If you were to put it in a box, it’s by and large a classical piece of music – consisting of a singular 46-minute composition split into 9 movements, and centred around a repeating motif. But to ‘put it in a box’ would, in my opinion, be an absolute disservice.
As much as it’s classical music, it’s jazz; It’s electronic; It’s ambient, psychedelic, and so, so much more.
Promises is sensationally hypnotic, and despite focussing on the same motif throughout its entirety, it is engaging, dynamic, and absolutely enthralling throughout. This is thanks to a few key reasons, I feel. They are, of course, the three musicians/groups listed on the credits.
Firstly, Shepherd demonstrates brilliant compositional skill, to keep each movement interesting, yet without losing its core motif. Through varied passages of electronic bleeps and bloops, immense rises and falls in dynamics, showcases of saxophone and strings, and perhaps most impressively, the use of silence, it’s a wonderful piece of writing from Shepherd, and employs the strengths of each component to create pure transcendence.
Leading on from this, Sanders’ tenor saxophone playing is beautifully rich, powerful and incredibly controlled. It never fails to amaze me how these passages were recorded by a player in his late 70s; it’s discernible from his playing some 50 years earlier. To add more spirit to the sound, listen knowing this would go on to be Sanders’ last ever released music, prior to his passing in 2022.
Movement 4 features Pharoah Sanders vocalising wordless passages in a way which sounds almost like they’ve come from Shepherd’s synthesizer. It’s just one of many wonderful little examples of the diversity which keeps this record so interesting, and with a Floating Points, and Pharoah Sanders twist.
Promises is a dynamic masterpiece, which leads us onto factor number three: the luscious strings of the London Symphony Orchestra, absolutely played and produced to perfection. They reach a magnificent, overpowering dynamic peak in Movement 6, before fading away to expose an almost psychedelic final few passages from Sanders and Shepherd. The sonic highs and lows created from the orchestra are the final piece of this puzzle – truly elevating the sound (both metaphorically and literally) to another level.
One thing I absolutely adore about albums such as Promises is how they act as gateways between musical worlds. I am a big fan of jazz, and a big fan of electronic music, but admittedly I never really listen to classical music. However, sticking on this album for the first ever time, and getting goosebumps through the orchestral crescendo in Movement 6, is one of those musical experiences that will stick with me forever – and it makes me want to dive head first into some Bach, Beethoven or Brahms.
I imagine there are plenty of people who know Pharoah Sanders and not Floating Points, and vice versa. Or maybe you’re a huge classical fan, and have never really digged either jazz or electronic music. Whichever category you might fall into, I’d implore you to give this album a go; you might just come away with a whole new musical world to explore.
Waxing Lyrical 