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Nala Sinephro: Endlessness review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week
The follow-up to Space 1.8 pulses with meditative, spiritual-jazz elements, but amid soothing orchestrations, tension and surprise upend easy listening
Given all that, and the fact that Endlessness – which features not only Garcia, but a host of other luminaries from the same scene, among them Ezra Collective saxophonist James Mollison, Kokoroko bandleader Sheila Maurice-Grey and former Black Midi drummer Morgan Simpson – bills itself as “a deep dive into the cycle of existence”, you would be forgiven for expecting a slightly more robust, sax-heavy take on the kind of music you get served up by relaxation apps. During lockdown, Sinephro helmed an admirably eclectic radio show on NTS, the playlist of which attempted to join the dots between J Dilla and Frederick Delius, Cocteau Twins and Cannonball Adderley, but the sound of Endlessness frequently seems more interested in examining the tensions between different types of music, notably the natural swing of jazz players and the clipped, machine-tooled precision of programmed synth arpeggios. A lot of the analogue synth sounds Sinephro deploys are ascetic and slightly abrasive – they sometimes recall the “hauntological” electronica with which the Ghost Box label evokes distant memories of old Radiophonic Workshop soundtracks – and they snag against the warmth of the acoustic instruments.
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