Promises

January 26, 2022 7:24 AM

Promises is a 2021 studio album by British electronic musician Sam Shepard, aka Floating Points, and American jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders.

In 2015, a then-75-year-old Sanders heard Floating Points’s debut album Elaenia, reached out to the younger musician and, over lunch, suggested a collaboration. Much of the album was recorded in 2019, with the London Symphony Orchestra contributing material in 2020 via “a minor miracle of technology… their parts [were recorded] remotely during the pandemic, using over one hundred mics simultaneously.” Built primarily around a single musical figure, the album consists of nine movements, and defies generic categorization, incorporating elements of minimalist jazz, ambient electronica, prog, psychadelia, and many others.

Reviews:

The Guardian: “Extraordinary. . . . Not strictly classical, jazz or ambient electronica, this one-track, nine-movement album embodies the highest, most etiolated aspects of all three disciplines.”
Pitchfork: “[A] celestial event” and a “clear late-career masterpiece” from Sanders.
NPR: “a gorgeous, gemlike album that readily fits few of the descriptors often applied to either artist.”
Paste: “When played without interruption and afforded the patience (and quality speakers) it demands, Promises is the kind of album that can rearrange the molecules in a room. It can imbue your drab apartment with a vast, cinematic weight. It can kill a party (this is admittedly speculative) in the best possible way. It can fill up the space while you wash dishes, put away laundry or water plants, infusing any mind-numbing household activity with a mist of supernatural yearning.”

posted by saladin (30 comments total)

Psychedelia, dammit.
posted by saladin at 7:29 AM on January 26, 2022

Oh yes oh yes: if you are a person who has not listened to this, you should listen to this. If you are a person who has listened to this, you have not listened to it enough. You are doing the good lord's work in spreading this splendor, saladin.
posted by youarenothere at 7:33 AM on January 26, 2022 [6 favorites]

Thanks a lot. I've been listening to the album for a week and Mr Sanders' Tenor tone works like a charm. I needed a bit of context though. Thanks !
posted by nicolin at 7:44 AM on January 26, 2022

Wow.
posted by rocketman at 7:51 AM on January 26, 2022

This was my AOTY for '21. Just a gorgeous thing. Thanks for spreading the word.
posted by the sobsister at 8:20 AM on January 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Love this album, it's a feast.

Also very worth checking out Sanders' 1972 38 minute single track, Black Unity
posted by dis_integration at 8:20 AM on January 26, 2022 [5 favorites]

This is the most gorgeous record. It was in my Top Ten of the year (and my top ten is always --In No Particular Order). I literally just listened to it this morning again and every time feels like a fresh delight.
posted by thivaia at 9:45 AM on January 26, 2022

if this is all I ever came across in MeFi for the entirety of 2022, it would be all I needed

Sanders "Karma" changed my life, how I hear music, it was transformative. Seconding the "Black Unity" mention upthread, and "Tauhid" is pretty great. Wow, thank you saladin!
posted by elkevelvet at 9:56 AM on January 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

Well at least you included a review from Teh Grauniad. For more transatlantic balance in the coverage (and more of a specific focus on electronic music), here's RA:

- An epic, intergenerational meeting results in one of the greatest modern jazz albums.

It is quite a good album from two of my favorite artists. I know that Floating Points can be a bit hit-and-miss in his output so I tried to keep my expectations low for this project and I was not disappointed. It is basically a Floating Points project embellished with some Pharoah Sanders solos.

Some folks have said that it has 'Disney' elements, or is 'coffee table lounge music' (I may have made that last bit up but you get the gist). But then I have a hard time listening to ANY new album all the way through, there's just so much commercial release pressure that results in a steady stream of filler being pumped out -- and so much new and great music coming out in other formats, often from historically marginalized people! So yeah this probably was one of the best LPs from last year, all things considered.
posted by viborg at 9:58 AM on January 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

(I was not previously familiar with Paste Magazine, interesting that they come from Atlanta. Worth a follow, thanks saladin.)
posted by viborg at 9:59 AM on January 26, 2022

Some folks have said that it has 'Disney' elements, or is 'coffee table lounge music'

Oh, I couldn't disagree more (and I know that you're not saying this, viborg). This album all but demands attentive listening and wouldn't be a great choice to soothe the caffeinated masses at your local hangout (that Paste article gets it right with that party-killer quote). There's nothing trite or easy about it, and in fact I think many casual listeners would bail out during some of Sanders' more dissonant passages. I've listened to it straight through several times, and the only reason I haven't listened to it more is that I gotta have the right set and setting.

As an aside, I saw Sanders at Yoshi's in Oakland years and years ago, and that man has the capacity to stop time itself.
posted by vverse23 at 10:19 AM on January 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

Ha! I was at the same show, in fact I dragged my whole family there. (Actually it may have been a different night, iirc he played a few nights there.)

I don't feel like the dissonant elements really stand out so much, and Floating Points has been moving more and more in a lounge music direction lately. But tbh I haven't listened to it straight through yet, it's just not how I listen to music. I will do so when I have a little chunk of free time here though.
posted by viborg at 11:16 AM on January 26, 2022

Lovely, parts of it remind me of one of my all time favorites, Neighborhoods by Ernest Hood
posted by q*ben at 12:20 PM on January 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

This sounds like my kinda thing. Thanks a ton for making this post!
posted by heteronym at 12:37 PM on January 26, 2022

I wonder if I will ever be able to read "Promises" as a title and not immediately start hearing the Nero song and associated remixes of that name. It's unfair almost, I tried to listen to the music in the OP but my brain immediately geared itself into "techno" mode which is not as receptive to classy jazz arrangements. Head and body ready to bounce to some beep boop candy.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:00 PM on January 26, 2022

This is also my favorite album of 2021--thanks for this post.
posted by box at 1:38 PM on January 26, 2022

I am also very happy with this music - bought it without hearing anything, just new Sanders in a weird collaboration. I think there are some folks who don’t like it, maybe fans of Sanders’ older stuff? As a fan of Sanders’ older stuff myself, I welcome this.
posted by zoinks at 4:23 PM on January 26, 2022

cover art is Julie Mehretu who has a show up at the Walker in Minneapolis now.
posted by djseafood at 4:39 PM on January 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

This album showed up on Bandcamp's best of 2021 list which is definitely worth a listen if you're into this. There's some really good jazz-adjacent stuff on the list, I love the atmospheric Space 1.8 by Nala Sinephro
posted by JZig at 7:12 PM on January 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

I love the atmospheric Space 1.8 by Nala Sinephro

Seconded!
posted by thivaia at 7:46 PM on January 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Goodness gracious! This is right up my alley, really! Thanks so much for posting it. Entirely similar and yet completely different is Pat Metheny Group's This Way Up [1h7m], which is much more driving in feel and has debts to very obvious forerunners. But you're still left asking, what is this music exactly? And just being enthralled the whole time.
posted by hippybear at 9:14 PM on January 26, 2022

Also, looking at Bandcamp... Like... yay vinyl (I buy too much of it), but for this? um.... how? where? why?
posted by hippybear at 9:29 PM on January 26, 2022

It's at the top of this listing on for Floating Points on Bandcamp, but also check Luaka Bop on Bandcamp.
posted by k3ninho at 12:30 AM on January 27, 2022

I love this album so much!
posted by alsoran at 5:58 AM on January 27, 2022

There have been several vinyl editions, too, many of them pretty limited, which is both a very 2020s way to get people to buy albums and something that Bandcamp should get some credit for popularizing.
posted by box at 6:38 AM on January 27, 2022

I've been under-appreciating Bandcamp, that is clear from this post. Enjoying the Nala Sinephro you mentioned, JZig.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:26 AM on January 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

If you like ambient music released on Bandcamp last year, you might also enjoy Sound Wonders, a compilation curated by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and @0, a compilation curated and mixed by Coldcut and Mix Master Morris (among many other albums--2021 was a good year, and Bandcamp is a good place, for this kind of music).
posted by box at 8:30 AM on January 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

^ yes
this thread just keeps on giving, thanks!
posted by elkevelvet at 3:33 PM on January 27, 2022

While at Bandcamp I purchased a second Floating Points album, Crush. Which is entirely different but also right up my alley. I don't really know what "genre" of music this is, but I feel like I've been listening to different variations on this for a while -- Vangelis, Synergy (Larry Fast), and up into Amorphous Androgynous and later artists.

Good stuff. Thanks so much for pointing it out!
posted by hippybear at 4:24 PM on January 27, 2022

I should probably post over in IRL at some point, but since this seems like the right crowd: anyone else headed to Big Ears this year?
posted by youarenothere at 5:43 AM on January 28, 2022 [1 favorite]