aaamusic | On 29, Apr 2012

“Rispah” the new album from The Invisible (out 11th June 2012), is, in the words of singer-guitarist Dave Okumu, ”a love letter to grief.” Mid-way through recording a follow-up to 2009’s Mercury-nominated debut album, Okumu’s mother passed away and the band’s plans and aesthetic were thrown into turmoil. As Okumu remembers it, “I couldn’t engage with music for a long period. The moment it returned to me was at my mum’s funeral, which lasted several days. One evening, during the wake, my grandmother Zilpa, my mother’s mum, arrived at our home accompanied by a group of women singing traditional spirituals. They approached my mother’s body and sang over it, dancing around her coffin. It was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. They transformed the atmosphere with sound and the spirit they brought to it. They were celebrating life and death, grief and hope, all things. This act was allowing everyone present to express themselves. It served as the most potent reminder of everything I believe about music. It’s there for everybody, it’s inclusive and transformative. I’m so glad these voices are stitched through our record.”

This epiphany forms the spiritual core of ‘Rispah’ (Okumu’s mother’s name). It is a record imbued with an inevitable melancholy but defined by a sense of hope. Above all, this is an inclusive record, drawing on personal grief in order to create something universal and emotionally true. Throughout, the band reveal their rich creativity and musicianship. Echoes run through these songs of African music (including beautifully-woven-in samples of the singers from his mother’s funeral), psalm tones and devotional music, ‘In A Silent Way’-era Miles Davis, hints of minimal classical composers such as Steve Reich and the wilder more psychedelic end of hip hop and related electronic musics. If you wanted, you could look for and find echoes of The Beach Boys or Brian Eno, too, though much of this is due to the originality of their sound, the sense of a group who will not compromise. Nothing is ever included for the sake of it, no attempt is made to patronise or sell the audience short. It’s a record brimming with real emotion and restless intelligence, a record to get lost in.

“PROTECTION” Video:

“PROTECTION” (KWES. REWORK):

CLICK HERE

LGS // LDN: COLLABORATION WITH KING SUNNY ADE:

This summer, in the run up to the olympics, The Invisible will be performing in collaboration with the mighty King Sunny Ade, the creator of the irresistible sound of juju, a genre which has impacted heavily on some of their favourite artists, from Talking Heads to the Rolling Stones. The British Council has curated a series of collaborations connecting British musicians with artists and performers around the world to form part of BT River of Music. This will be a weekend of FREE SHOWS, and The Invisible will be performing with King Sunny Ade on 21 July 2012. For more information see http://festival.london2012.com/events/9000961797 and http://www.btriverofmusic.com/artist/lgs-ldn