Photo: Lex Blondin
Based in London and brought up in Japan and the US, Momoko Gill has firmly established herself as one of the most exciting talents in contemporary jazz and electronic music today. Earlier this year she released an album with Matthew Herbert and last year she teamed up with visual artist, filmmaker and poet Nadeem Din-Gabisi for a collaborative album as An Alien Called Harmony. A highly sought-after drummer and forward-thinking and brilliant composer, producer, songwriter, and vocalist, she has been collaborating and performing with a wide variety of incredible artists, including Alabaster DePlume, Coby Sey, Tirzah, Ruth Goller and Rozi Plain. Gill is finally stepping out from behind the curtain and releasing music under her own name for the first time. February 13th will see her release her debut solo album, simply titled Momoko, through Strut. A “deeply personal and poetic” album with an expansive stylistic range, it showcases her incredible songwriting skills and inimitable vision to full effect. As the press release describes, “throughout, you can hear the stylistic flavours of jazz musicians as much as singer-songwriters, experimental artists and electronic producers”. Recorded at Total Refreshment Centre, Momoko was self-produced and mixed by Matthew Herbert.
February feels like a long way but Gill is already enticing us with two sublime singles from Momoko, the jazzier and radiant ‘No Others’ and When Palestine Is Free’, an utterly beautiful, moving and powerful track featuring a 50-person choir from London’s music scene that includes Shabaka Hutchings, Rozi Plain, Alabaster DePlume, Coby Sey, Forest Law, Ruth Goller, Danalogue, Seb Rochford, tyroneisaacstuart, Matthew Herbert and many, many more. “Why is it that we know, with more certainty than ever, that we are just one corner of a vast living, breathing mycelium network in a state of total emergency, battling powerful forces that seem to be driven by antagonism towards life itself?” Momoko comments. “Colonial violence, racism and oppression are everywhere, but it has never felt more urgent to renew our vows to fight it everywhere we see it.”
Gill will cast a spell on you so go and listen to both tracks below.
