Moor Mother: Jazz Codes (indie shop edition/turquoise) LP

Called "the poet laureate of the apocalypse" by Pitchfork, Moor Mother returns with her second album for ANTI- and a companion to her celebrated 2021 release Black Encyclopedia of the Air. Jazz Codes uses poetry as a starting point, but the collection moves toward more melody, more singing voices, more choruses and more complexity. In its warm, densely layered course through jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, Jazz Codes sets the ear blissfully adrift and unhitches the mind from habit. Through her work, Ayewa illuminates the principles of her interdisciplinary collaborative practice Black Quantum Futurism, a theoretical framework for creating counter-chronologies and envisioning Black quantum womanist futures that rupture exclusionary versions of history and future through art, writing, music, and performance.