'Kaleidoscopic Visions' unfolds across two distinct sonic landscapes. Side A presents entirely instrumental compositions performed by Skinner's live Bishara band—bassist Tom Herbert, cellist Kareem Dayes, and Robert Stillman and Chelsea Carmichael on various woodwinds and reeds—with electric guitar on two tracks courtesy of Portishead's Adrian Utley. A drummer-composer bringing his wealth of experience to bear on the role of bandleader, Skinner composed primarily on guitar, embracing the freedom that came with writing on his secondary instrument.

These compositions include 'Auster', dedicated to late novelist Paul Auster, and 'Margaret Anne', which honours Skinner's mother Anne Shasby, a former classical concert pianist prodigy who abandoned her own promising career in the face of systemic misogyny, only to impart on her son what Skinner calls "the gift of music."

Skinner’s musical world opens further on Side B, where a collection of poised vocal collaborations stretch out from jazz and improvisation towards a more dream-like, soulful sound. The centerpiece is 'The Maxim', a ten-minute collaboration with Grammy Award-winning Meshell Ndegeocello, a dubby, spacious meditation on life and death, delivered with a free-spirited grace. For Skinner, working with Ndegeocello—whom he first saw at Glastonbury as a teenager in 1994—represents a full-circle moment, indicative of the indirect paths and inspirational detours that have shaped his life.

The album goes on to feature South Carolina-based singer Contour (Khari Lucas) who appears on the low-lit soul ballad ‘Logue’, and closes with ‘See How They Run’, featuring London keyboardist-vocalist Yaffra (Jonathan Geyevu). It is the album’s most overtly lyrical track, an articulate exposition of jazz-inflected spoken word that speaks not only to the genre-fluid nature of the music but the breadth of Skinner’s palette.

This should come as no surprise. 'On Kaleidoscopic Visions', one of London’s most vital musical figures gives us a sparkling glimpse of the multi-coloured lens through which his unique sound is now refracting.

TRACK LISTING

1. There's Nothing To Be Scared Of
2. Auster
3. Margaret Anne
4. Kaleidoscopic Visions
5. MHA
6. Still (Quiet)
7. The Maxim (feat. Meshell Ndegeocello)
8. Extensions 12
9. Logue (feat. Contour)
10. See How They Run (feat. Yaffra)

The title of Tom Skinner’s first release under his own name is a reference to cellist Abdul Wadud’s ultra-rare 1978 solo album By Myself, which Skinner listened to repeatedly during lockdown. Wadud’s album was privately pressed on his own label, Bisharra, and whilst Skinner’s title uses the more conventional spelling of this common Arabic name, they both have the same intention or meaning: it translates as ‘good news’, or ‘the bringer of good news’.

Voices of Bishara began life when Tom Skinner asked some musician friends to join him for a Played Twice session at London’s Brilliant Corners. The regular event had a simple format: play a classic album in full through their audiophile system and then have an elite ensemble improvise their response. The night in question focused on drummer Tony Williams’ 1964 Blue Note album Life Time and the music he and his friends conjured up was so special that it inspired Skinner to write an album’s-worth of phenomenal new music based on the work of Wadud, with a process inspired by this group-reimagining of Life Time.

The result is a tight, hypnotic and unique 31-minutes of music. Voices of Bishara is sculpted around timeless and deeply emotional music that contains masses of movement and exceptional harmonic depth and texture. It sweeps and soars through soundworlds, rich in musicality and always anchored by the deep doubling of cello and bass. It also, of course, contains Skinner’s percussive magic.

“We’re individual voices, coming together collectively,” says Skinner. “The idea was that we could collectively bring something more positive to the table. It’s the start of something.”

Tom Skinner and Voices of Bishara: bringers of good news.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Bishara – 5:37
2. Red 2 – 2:57
3. The Journey – 5:01

Side B
4. The Day After Tomorrow – 4:59
5. Voices (of The Past) – 4:50
6. Quiet As It’s Kept – 4:03

Drummer and producer Tom Skinner (The Smile, Sons of Kemet) announces this lean and beautiful album, in which he edited a starry recording session into a sonorous, tuff and beguiling new shape.

The title of Tom Skinner’s first release under his own name is a reference to cellist Abdul Wadud’s ultra-rare 1978 solo album ‘By Myself’, which Skinner listened to repeatedly during lockdown. Wadud’s album was privately pressed on his own label, Bisharra, and whilst Skinner’s title uses the more conventional spelling of this common Arabic name, they both have the same intention or meaning: it translates as ‘good news’, or ‘the bringer of good news’.

This is a classic-sounding record that connects backwards to Skinner’s 2017 Hello Skinny collaboration with American composer and Arthur Russell-collaborator Peter Zummo on ‘Watermelon Sun’. It links sideways to Makaya McCraven’s beat maker-inspired treatments of jazz sessions, and it offers a musical bridge to Sons of Kemet’s most meditative moments.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bishara
2. Red 2
3. The Journey
4. The Day After Tomorrow
5. Voices (of The Past)
6. Quiet As It's Kept