HONOUR Vinyl & CDs

Review: Honour's debut album, Alaafia, is a journey through the depths of the African diaspora, connecting Lagos, London, and New York. This album blends the darker tones of blues, hip-hop, free jazz, ambient and gospel with elements of Christian mythology and Yoruba folklore. As cinematic as it is painterly, Alaafia is a meditation on life, death and love, drawing inspiration from casual conversations, field recordings, literature, and personal archives. The result is an impressionistic vision that blurs boundaries between everywhere and nowhere, history and the present, the individual and the universal. Dedicated to Honour's late grandmother, the title track Alaafia began after their last embrace, infused with her spirit. This tape-saturated composition transitions from Lagos to London's smoky cityscape, reflecting the artist's grief and PTSD. The dream-like quality is marked by stretched guitar drones and stuttering loops, with their grandmother's shared faith surfacing through the music. 'When Angels Speak of Love' borrows its title from Sun Ra and bell hooks, shaping praise music into disorienting spirals with syrupy DJ Screw-inspired breaks and melancholic guitar splinters. This track engages in a conceptual dialogue with the spirits of both late thinkers, incorporating them into Honour's pantheon of ancestral guides. 'Giz Aard ($uckets),' the album's ninth track, features regimented drums anchoring a sombre melody that swirls with heartache, hovering between death and eternal joy.