Photo: Anna Niedermeier
Extraordinary alto saxophonist, composer, improviser and sound experimentalist Matana Roberts is back with a new instalment in their long running and acclaimed experimental project Coin Coin. They have announced Chapter Five: In the garden…, marking the project’s fifth instalment, which counts already four releases, 2011’s Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres, 2013’s Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile, 2015’s Coin Coin Chapter Three: river run thee and 2019’s Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis.
To bring Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden… to life, Roberts enlisted an outstanding ensemble including bass clarinettist Stuart Bogie, vocalist/actor Gitanjali Jain, alto saxophonist Darius Jones, alto clarinettist Matt Lavelle, percussionists Mike Pride and Ryan Sawyer, violinist Mazz Swift and pianist Cory Smythe and Kyp Malone (TV On The Radio, Bent Arcana) took over the production duties.
The album’s theme, a reaction to the current abortion laws in the US, is laid out sonically with elements of jazz, avant-garde composition, folk and spoken word. Roberts tells the story of a woman who dies from an illegal abortion. “I wanted to talk about this issue, but in a way where she gets some sense of liberation,” Roberts explained, offering some further insight into the album in their accompanying liner notes essay:
“There is something quite rancid going on in America right now, more so than any time I have seen… a growing cohort of ghoul-like humans who seem to think that your body does not belong to you. We have seen some of this before, we knew it was wrong, and we eradicated some of the issues. It wasn’t perfect how we did it, but we did it. And yet, like a never-ending train wreck, here we are again. The lack of access to safe and legal abortion services disproportionately affects marginalized and low-income communities, who often lack the resources and support to obtain safe reproductive health care. Reproductive healthcare includes abortion….
This over-focus and policing of ovaried bodies are getting in the way of the number one killer of American children today: firearms. This bounce around being dangerously shouted from conservative rooftops about trans bodies is just an extension of this reproductive rights fight.”
Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the garden… is set for release on September 29th through Constellation Records and ahead of it they are giving us a phenomenal taster of it with the opening 10 minutes of the album featuring the three-song suite “we said” / “different rings” / “unbenkownst”. Here it is.
