Promises - Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders: Review
Promises
is an all around unexpected collaboration. Floating Points is the project of electronic music producer Sam Shepherd, most well known for his brightly toned 2015 debut album Elaenia. Pharoah Sanders is a legendary experimental jazz saxophonist and John Coletrane collaborator who has been performing music for over 50 years. This duo teamed up with the London Symphony Orchestra for a 46 minute, 9 movement piece that fuses abstract electronica with free jazz forming one of the most Mad-Libs sounding descriptions of 2021 so far.
Review By Lav:
Going into this record I would say I was more curious than anything else. I like Floating Points music but I have never necessarily been blown away by any one project, and while I fully understand the talent and poise that Pharoah brings as a jazz experimentalist, I'm not as indulgent enough of a jazz head to fully wrap my head around his contributions as an individual. Despite that these names teaming up definitely peaked my interest and when critical acclaim started rolling for the project I had to set aside some time to get lost in it. What I found was an experience I see as entirely unique, fusing world of avant-garde sentimentality into something that feels both expansive and intimate, composed and untamed.
The piece is separated into 9 movements but is still very much one distinctive composition meant to be listened to in its entirety. Movement 1 is obviously the introduction and it starts with a very spacious combination of wind chimey keys and sax playing that slowly becomes more and more involved through the movements progression. The recording is so stark and isolated that it feels like a sax playing in an otherwise completely empty auditorium making for an impactful performance as each note is held out as it phases deep into the mix. Movements 2 and 3 each have distinctive features about them but with their short lengths and persistent shared instrumentation they feel like one long tightly connected passage. Movement 2 features an uptick in the intensity of the sax playing that is incredibly brief before transitioning into Movement 3 where the mix gets dense. The space provides room for distant wailing sax lines that feel galaxies away, recontexualizing the persistent bits of instrumentation in a very serene way.
Movement 4 brings with it the pieces first major shift in tone with the sax rushing back into the forefront of the mix and starting to wander through more up-tempo passages, dominating the focus of the section. That attention continues on Movement 5 where some of the improvisational sax playing interrupts long bouts of near silence between the keys. I love the very sullen tone of the performance and it's incredibly expressionistic bouncing between jittery passages and long drawn out notes. They continue to play with space here as during the movements finale with the sax getting louder and closer before fading back out again adding another dimension to the sound.
The next three movements are the longest on the album and each begins with a long and slow build-up. Movement 6 has been perhaps the most talked about section of the record likely stemming from it being the most orchestral in nature. At first the composition is gentle and swaying, slowly rising as it introduces new instruments with one beautiful passage after another. The most memorable moment features a dramatic rise from the strings which bustles alongside a distant drum pattern and those same beautiful keys the composition has been making use of throughout the whole record. The whole piece is gorgeous and when it arrives at its crescendo the results are totally blissful.
Movement 7 features an immediate return to the sax and spacious mix combination. This is the records most patient movement with everything sitting in a very quiet and reflective place including long bouts of near silence with only soft reverberations to take in. On the back half of the piece there is a dark and ominous moment where some very alien instrumentation starts to creep into the mix making heavy use of low pitched rumbling. It contrasts this with very natural and serene sounds that make me unsure what exactly I'm supposed to be feeling. There is a moment of wild sax on the back end that is wild by the records standards and leads it into an inevitable conclusion.
Movement 8 sees the record somehow continuing to get even more minimal with only the incredibly feint and increasingly separate keys filling the otherwise silent void. The song returns from a quiet interlude with ambient sounding keys that just drone out into infinity one after another for minutes on end. Even these are rushed out of the track in the final minute in favor of a jittery stop and start warbled passage and longer moments of near silence. The records conclusion Movement 9 transitions an ambient tone into a haunting strong arrangement that pierces the serenity the record had been executing for so long. As a finale it's both unexpected and unpredictable but I do quite enjoy the sounds on display and how subversive they feel.
I know there was a lot of description and not a whole lot of critique in this review but just understanding this record can be challenging. With the length of the piece understanding it as a whole single composition required more listens than an average album I review for the blog but I think now I've got my head around it pretty thoroughly and I have to say I really enjoy it. The decision to not overuse the orchestra is a very welcome one that makes the records most expansive moments in the back half feel like a grand progression from its isolation early on. While the persistent keys and wandering tones may not have been the most diverse way Floating Points could have contributed to the record, they never feel out of place on the piece and if anything they keep an otherwise experimental wandering composition grounded. Pharoah Sanders proves to be the real star of the show as his saxophone playing is fascinating in both the most controlled and unhinged moments. This record won't be for everyone but I find myself totally in awe of what this diverse cast of musicians managed to achieve and looking forward to spending a lot more time unpacking the nuances Promises has to offer, 8.5/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
