Product Details
- An MVD Exclusive
- SKU: FPE027
- Format: LP
- UPC: 857827004380
- Street Date: 06/26/20
- PreBook Date: 05/22/20
- Label: FPE Records »
- Genre: Jazz
- Run Time: 62:26 mins
- Number of Discs: 2
- Audio: STEREO
- Year of Production: 2020
- Region Code: 0
- Box Lot: 30
- Territory: WORLD
- Language: English
Product Assets
Nicole Mitchell & Lisa E. Harris - Earthseed
2 LPs: In response to the real chaos and horrific nature of our times, a sonic EarthSeed, after Octavia Butler.
- List Price: $28.99
- Your Price: $28.99
- In Stock: 9
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The work of award-winning African American science fiction author Octavia E. Butler becomes increasingly prophetic as we move through the challenges of the new century. Her novels Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1996) use fiction to illuminate a horrific unraveling of 21st-century America into a despotic chaos where its once-middle-class citizens struggle to survive in an incredibly violent and fragmented reality, void of normalcy, family, and resources. In the 1990s, Butler's Parables warned readers about a possible disintegration of American culture and infrastructure, among the many risks of tyrannical rule. Within Butler's storyline, the character Lauren Oya Olamina, a preacher's daughter of African heritage, helps to rebuild her community through offering Earthseed, an egalitarian philosophy and spiritual practice which honors inquiry, independent thinking, and realistic acceptance of constant change.
Inspired by and in tribute to Octavia E. Butler, composers Nicole M. Mitchell and Lisa E. Harris have created their own sonic EarthSeed, also in response to the real chaos and horrific nature of our times. EarthSeed is the third of Mitchell's projects inspired by the literature of Butler and marks a first compositional collaboration between Harris and Mitchell. Mitchell's two previous recorded Butler-inspired works are Xenogenesis Suite (Firehouse 12) and Intergalactic Beings (FPE). EarthSeed was commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago and premiered on June 22, 2017.
Media
Track Listing
Disc 1:
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Bonus Materials
- Deluxe gatefold jacket
Sales Points
- Nicole Mitchell's previous album, Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds topped year-end lists in 2017, including NY Times, LA Times, and NPR Jazz Critics Poll
Press Quotes
Bold, visionary, and idiosyncratic, the music here sometimes settles into a deep meditative hum that grounds us in the present; at other times, it explodes like some primal scream crying out from the uncertain future.
—John Morrison, Bandcamp
unearthly but also familiar and compelling.
—Michael J. West, Jazz Times
This is something unlike anything else you'll hear this month, or this year.
—Phil Freeman, Stereogum
open up listeners to bold new ways of thinking about the world, and to encourage them to see past its present-day limitations.
—Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times
destined to be one of the best of 2020.
—Joseph Neff, The Vinyl District
It is a sort of avant-garde opera in its form: vocals, bare strings and flute patterns trace themes around poetic axioms. It is clear and luminous, in its text and in its airy instrumentation. There is much wisdom in Mitchell and Harris' words.
—Jennifer Lucy Allan, The Quietus
The musical journey of EarthSeed defies any comfortable genre tag; it's ritual, it's soul exploration, and most important, it's challenging, rewarding art.
—Steve Krakow, Chicago Reader
Drawing on the fusion of improvisation and composition that marks the works of the AACM and Art Ensemble of Chicago, EarthSeed's music is challenging and bracing, often deploying an array of small sounds that confront and befuddle.
—Andy Beta, Pitchfork