People in Sorrow cover

People in Sorrow

Released

During their sojourn in Paris, which lasted from 1969 to early 1972, the Art Ensemble recorded over a dozen albums; this is among the most striking. A single 40-minute piece stretched across two sides of vinyl, it was made before drummer Famoudou Don Moye joined, so it begins as a meditative, sparse soundscape — the horns whisper and keen as Malachi Favors’ bass rumbles along and occasional splashes of hand-held percussion mark intervals — but in its final third it builds to multi-horn polyphony, sometimes quite beautiful, as one member, likely Roscoe Mitchell, subverts it all by producing a seemingly endless wavering tone like a malfunctioning door-buzzer from an unidentified reed instrument.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Circuit City cover

Circuit City

Moor Mother
Lifelong Ambitions cover

Lifelong Ambitions

Muhal Richard Abrams, Leroy Jenkins
Hz cover

Hz

Main
Nommo cover

Nommo

Milford Graves, Don Pullen
Rope-A-Dope cover

Rope-A-Dope

Lester Bowie
Koksofen cover

Koksofen

Caspar Brötzmann Massaker
Medusae cover

Medusae

Nicole Mitchell, Fabio Paolizzo