Just saying.....

There's more where New Blue Sun came from

Today Andre 3000, the rapper best known for his visionary work with Outkast, releases his first solo album. It’s called New Blue Sun, and it’s a series of long instrumental quests centered around his flute(s), the cosmic percussion of Carlos Nino and the anchoring keyboard work of Surya Botofasina. Here’s a taste, entitled “I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A "Rap" Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time.”

As the overheated early press coverage has noted, New Blue Sun draws inspiration from the modal, open-ended quests of such spiritual jazz pioneers as Alice Coltrane. At the same time, it incorporates short riffs and recurring melodic elements that are part of the architecture of all kinds of electronic music. The pieces unfold slowly, and like much ambient music, are intended to envelop listeners, take them on a journey.

I’ve not lived with the album enough to have developed an opinion — for what it’s worth, the first entry in my notes was “cool textures…some noodling too.” But I have spent time with recent music made by some of the musicians involved in Andre 3000’s latest — the prolific percussionist and producer Carlos Nino and keyboardist Surya Botofasina. If you find yourself even a little bit enchanted by New Blue Sun — as art and not just a star’s curious pivot move — there’s more down this street. And some of it is spectacular.

While Nino’s own most recent work leans toward LA jazz fusion, Botofasina’s 2022 Everyone’s Children, which involves Nino’s textural bells and chimes, stands as one of the most imaginative, and ruminative, spiritual jazz works ever. The music floats within its own surreal and disarming airspace; with wisps of organ and piano atop gently vibrating drones, it lulls the listener into an immersion-tank calm that can slowly, over time, obliterate the outside world.