In 2020, musician and scholar Jake Blount released his highly acclaimed debut Spider Tales, instantly capturing the hearts and imagination of many with The Guardian awarding it a perfect five stars and calling it “an instant classic.”
Today, Blount announces his new album, The New Faith, out September 23rd on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings—Blount’s first project in partnership with the esteemed non-profit label (pre-order/pre-save).
The New Faith will be released as part of Smithsonian Folkways’ African American Legacy series—co-conceived with and supported by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (other releases in the series include Leyla McCalla‘s Vari-Colored Songs, Our Native Daughters’ Songs of Our Native Daughters and Dom Flemons Black Cowboys).
The New Faith is described as a dystopian Afrofuturistic concept album; the record features ten reimagined and reinterpreted traditional Black spirituals across twelve tracks in addition to two original spoken word pieces. The album’s first single, Blount’s stirring version of “Didn’t It Rain”—made famous by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Mahalia Jackson—is out today and can be heard below.
There’s a clip of the guitar-wielding Sister Rosetta Tharpe performing this song on a train platform with an audience sitting on the other side of the tracks. You only need to watch how she stands and holds the guitar to appreciate how far ahead of the scene she really was. Her place in rock history and the part she played in defining that sound went largely unrecognised for many years following her death in 1973. While other artists saw her influence on their own musical development and the likes of the Black Rock Coalition, set up in 1985, sought to reclaim the innovations artists like Tharpe brought to popular music, she still wasn’t inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame until 2018. Considering the concept of this album, it feels hugely appropriate that she helped make this song so popular.
Jake Blount’s music is part of a rich legacy, and this album feels like an essential and innovational milestone. When talking about old spirituals that are passed down, he says below that although he doesn’t regard himself as deeply religious, “In moments of homesickness, sorrow and fear, they are the songs I turn to for solace.” Arguably, it was this same connection – seeking solace – in response to a time of rising racial tension and the Watts riots of 1965 that John Coltrane made A Love Supreme, a milestone album that marked a sweeping movement across the jazz world…a time for black artists to reshape the boundaries of jazz, to find hope for the future and to better celebrate their rich culture. Not all looked to the sacred sounds of their youth. Alice Coltrane and Don Cherry looked towards Africa and the East, while others, such as the musical polymath Herman Blount, better known as Sun Ra, considered by many the founder of Afrofuturism, looked towards space. Jake Blount casts his own net wide, taking in sounds from “Belize, Georgia, Jamaica, Texas, Mississippi, New York and beyond“.
As a philosophy, Afrofuturism blends the future, the past and the present, it’s also very personal, as is apparent in Blount’s comments below. Just like the Afrofuturist Parable series by author Octavia Estelle Butler, Blount’s future is strongly affected by the current climate change and our poor environmental stewardship of the planet. It’s clearly not been an easy album to make, but the very essence and importance of that journey can be felt and heard on ‘Didn’t It Rain’.
Conceived, written and recorded during the darkest months of lockdowns—while Blount himself was still recovering from what he now knows was likely a bout with long COVID—and just after the unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd, the album aims to envision what Black religious music would sound like in a not-so-distant future world devastated by climate change.
Of the ambitious project, Blount shares,
“I have long felt a powerful draw to the old spirituals passed down in my community. I am an unlikely devotee; I only rarely attended church as a child, declared myself an atheist at the tender age of eight and developed a strong antipathy toward Christianity when I began to understand my queerness. Nonetheless, spirituals are the songs I bring to communal singing events. They are the songs I teach. In moments of homesickness, sorrow and fear, they are the songs I turn to for solace.
This record envisions Black American religious music in a future devastated by warfare and anthropogenic climate change. The record is based on field recordings of Black religious services from the early-to-mid 20th century, but it is composed entirely of new arrangements and subtle rewrites of traditional Black folk songs. To make an informed prediction, I referenced a more diverse cross-section of the African Diaspora’s music than I ever have before. This album incorporates sounds from Belize, Georgia, Jamaica, Texas, Mississippi, New York and beyond.
It is not surprising to me that the most paralyzing time of my life, and the deepest dive into history I’ve yet taken, have resulted in an Afrofuturist album. I believe our most likely future bears a close resemblance to our past.
The end result is an album comprised of songs and sounds heard in traditional African and African American ceremony, but updated with modern techniques. Drums, banjos, fiddles and song meet rock and roll, rap, looping, and contemporary arrangements. Ambient sounds and drone material collected on Cushing’s Island, Maine, establish the soundscape. I discerned the sound of the future by listening to the past and present.
The destruction of a way of life entails both loss and growth. The traditional songs I adapted for The New Faith originally developed among a people who had but recently been robbed of home, history, family, culture, and society. The unique history of African American people made our musical tradition an ideal candidate for my ambitious task. The New Faith is a statement of reverence for our devastating, yet empowering past; of anticipation and anxiety toward our uncertain future; and of hope that, come what may, something of us will yet survive.”
Produced by Blount along with Brian Slattery, the album was recorded mainly in Blount’s own bedroom in Providence, RI. In addition to Blount on vocals, fiddle, banjo, bass, percussion and strings and Slattery on percussion, guitar and strings, the album features guest appearances by Demeanor, D’orjay The Singing Shaman, Samuel James, Kaïa Kater, Lizzie No, Mali Obomsawin, Brandi Pace, Rissi Palmer and Lillian Werbin.
In celebration of the album, Blount will embark on an extensive headline tour this fall, including stops at Chicago’s The Hideout, Minneapolis’ First Avenue, Philadelphia’s World Café Live, Washington, DC’s Pearl Street Warehouse, Brooklyn’s Jalopy Theater and Boston’s Club Passim as well as appearances at Bristol Rhythm & Roots Festival, AmericanaFest and Bourbon and Bluegrass Festival.
The New Faith, out September 23rd on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings – pre-order/pre-save
Tour Dates
September 10-11—Bristol, TN—Bristol Rhythm & Roots Festival
September 13-15—Nashville, TN—AmericanaFest
September 16—Hickory, NC—Sails Music Series
September 17—Knoxville, TN—Boyd’s Jig & Reel
September 18—Louisville, KY—Bourbon and Bluegrass Festival
September 19—Lexington, KY—WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour
September 20—Bellefontaine, OH—Holland Theatre
September 21—Lansing, MI—The Robin Theatre
September 22—Chicago, IL—The Hideout
September 23—Madison, WI—The North Street Cabaret
September 24—Winona, MN—Boats and Bluegrass
September 25—Minneapolis, MN—First Avenue & 7th St Entry
September 28—Wethersfield, CT—Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum
October 14—Philadelphia, PA—World Cafe Live
October 15—Washington, DC—Pearl Street Warehouse
October 16—Charlottesville, VA—The Front Porch
October 18—Brooklyn, NY—Jalopy Theater
October 19—Boston, MA—Club Passim
October 20—Sheffield, MA—Dewey Hall
October 21—Providence, RI—Columbus Theatre
October 22—Saratoga Springs, NY—Caffe Lena
October 23—Portland, ME—One Longfellow Square
Website: https://jakeblount.com/