Watermelancholia: Vinyl LP

Pre-Order Item. Release Date Subject to Change.
Label: CORTIZONA
Release Date: 2nd December

Some of the best jazz records are moments captured, probably most of them, come to think of it, it's music live and alive, bottled, sold and played so you the listening can recreate that magic of unity at home. Brahja's 'Watermelancholia' brings that spiritual hard bop energy on record, your room filled with players all playing lead but all coming together, with a choir of singers bringing and singing unity. Spiritual jazz at its best.

For those who dig: Archie Shepp, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Angel Bat Dawid, Shabaka Hutchings, Alabester DePlume, Kamasi Washington, Nubyi Garcia, jaimie branch..

Devin Brahja Waldman is a New York saxophonist, drummer, synthesizer player and composer who leads the group BRAHJA. Waldman has accompanied his aunt, poet Anne Waldman, since the age of ten. Waldman is a co-founding member of Radical Reversal, Diva of Deva Loka, and Notable Deaths. He has performed with Patti Smith, William Parker, Nadah El Shazly, Malcolm Mooney, Thurston Moore, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Charles Hayward, Luke Stewart and Yoshiko Chuma. Waldman is also a member of NYC's Heroes Are Gang Leaders (led by poet Thomas Sayers Ellis and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis), of Sam Shalabi's Land of Kush, and of the Norwegian hardcore group MoE.

As a youngster, Waldman was taken under the wing of avant-garde giant Paul Bley. Along with Anne Waldman and cousin Ambrose Bye, Waldman is a co-producer for Fast Speaking Music -a NYC poetry and music label which has released recordings with Amiri Baraka, Meredith Monk, William Parker, Laurie Anderson, Eileen Myles, CAConrad, Fred Moten, Daniel Carter, Clark Coolidge, Thurston Moore, Joanne Kyger and many others.

Ancient to the future 2.0

Watermelancholia is about the law of Karma: a law so obvious that it often goes unspecified and ignored. Neglecting this law invites a world of chaos. It's been articulated in endless ways.
Some have called it Cosmic Law or Natural Law. Others translate it as Do No Harm.(liner notes excerpt)

The moment the first bass note of Luke Stewart kicks in on 'Watermelancholia', followed by the swelling drum roll of Malick Koly and the lush leading voice of Janice Lowe you feel Devin Brahja will take you on a deep mind-blowing spiritual journey.

Channeling wild seventies Impulse vibes on 'O.P.K' or, could we say, even resonating the guts of early Art Ensemble of Chicago and the tempering spirit of Max Roach's 'We Insist' era: BRAHJA is soul searching their spirit on 'Watermelancholia'.

A poetic stream of consciousness, backboned by top-notch musicians, transcending the cosmic universe, trying to find answers and musically connecting.

Watermelancholia is a meditation on healing the inner schism between the sense of self - the ego - and the inner being. It is about bringing the ego to justice; putting it on trial, as it were.