aja monet
Alessandro Cortini
Alice Longyu Gao
Ami Dang
Anika
Astrid Sonne
Ata Kak
Brìghde Chaimbeul
Carla dal Forno
Caterina Barbieri
Cecile Believe
Circuit des Yeux
Clarissa Connelly
Cole Pulice
Colin Stetson
Dinamarca
Ellie O’Neill
EQ
Essaie pas
Evicshen
Faten Kanaan
Fennesz
Flore Laurentienne
FUJI|||||||||||TA
Golin
Hana Stretton
Hatis Noit
Helena Deland
Hildegard
Horse Lords
Horse Vision
Hyd
Isla Den
Jerusalem In My Heart
JJJJJerome Ellis
Joanne Robertson
Joe Rainey
John Glacier
Kelly Moran
KMRU
KOKOKO!
Leenalchi
Lucrecia Dalt
Magic Tuber Stringband
Malibu
Maria Chávez
Maria Somerville
Marie Davidson
Marina Herlop
Meara O’Reilly
Meth Math
ML Buch
Moin
Myriam Gendron
Nadah El Shazly
NEW YORK
Niecy Blues
Radwan Ghazi Moumneh
Sassy 009
Smerz
Solids
Still House Plants
Stone Bonnet Choir
Tarta Relena
The Turntable Trio
Valentina Magaletti
Visible Cloaks
William Basinski
Yasuaki Shimizu
Zola Jesus
aja monet
AGENTMichaël Bardier
Surrealist blues poet, aja monet, announces her powerful new album, the color of rain, due May 22nd on drink sum wtr. The album announcement arrives today with a Jesse Boykins III-directed video for album standout “elsewhere.” A track that poetically grooves and glimmers--featuring soul-stirring vocals by Georgia Anne Muldrow, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Novena Carmel.
"’elsewhere’ is a dedication to Sly Stone. We were in the studio working on the album and learned of his death. Meshell told me to go home and write something not in memoriam but in homage. The next day we started working on the song and it was like he was in the room with us,” monet explains. “Everything came together in divine timing. I had already reached out to Novena Carmel and also Georgia Anne Muldrow but they both responded the same day and joined us. The song reminds me of our love for one another and the portal of possibility."
At the crux of rising fascism, aja monet offers a waking-dream intervention, amid the sinister reality of contemporary events. A prompt to look up at the sky within, the color of rain, co-produced by monet, Justin Brown and Meshell Ndegeocello, is an imbrication of familiar genres forged beyond category or definition. As one stride’s through the sequence of poems, each song shifts between musical perceptions of jazz, soul, hip hop, rhythm and blues. Surrealism at it’s finest, a marvelous unleashing of the mind. the color of rain reminds us that poetry predates the very blueprints of genre. Rather than delivering poetry over fixed arrangements, aja works in close conversation with the music, adjusting phrasing, cadence, and tone as the compositions shift.
TERRITORY
North America
PRESS
Afropunk
The Creative Independant
Clash
The Fader
CONNECT
X