Art does not always need to be served on a plate; sometimes, you have to give music time to cast its spell, to conjure up some magic, and I have to admit there is something quite hypnotic happening on The MerKaBa Brotherhood. The opening number, Galgalim, is music that feels like it is being played by the wind; there is a lot of tinkling and you can feel the oxygen exhaling this environment into audio life as a lonely, mournful even, instrument that sounds like a marimba taps out a sorrowful figure on repeat.
Obelisks (Sun Clocks) actually moves things into a world adjacent to that where spiritual jazz rises out of the soil. There is a sprinkling of saxophone, a scenery awash with vibes, and a strange, science-fiction-like thrum in the air. It is as if the music is delivered by a faulty teleporter that cannot quite cross between the dimensions, so these flashes of colour flicker into view momentarily before disappearing with similar brevity. As the sax gets more muscular, the frenzied blowing summons thoughts of free jazz, but is that quite what we have here? Can it be legitimately described as free when there are clearly defined bass movements holding everything together and electronic keyboard chord patterns that almost serve as a framework, albeit one committed to a freestyle aesthetic? Angelic Beings arrive, and again the brain feels like it is being submerged in another dimension, a clever effect in a piece that stockpiles every soothing element from the opening sequence, the bells, the chimes, the gentle sax and floating keys, and compacts them into a cloud of absolute tranquillity.
Perhaps this has all been a setup? I say this because Ancient Time Travel does aim to make good on the vintage space cadet promise that launches this set, propelling us into a vortex destined to arrive at the core of The MerKaBa Brotherhood. And if anyone is familiar with the old early sixties science-fiction of programmes like Doctor Who, the audio on this track is exactly the kind of futuristic wallpaper the BBC Radiophonic Workshop deployed for space-age sound effects. But the question remains, where are we being taken, will we ever return and just who is this brotherhood? The Brotherhood almost seem to move like a cipher in plain sight; to speak in more earthly language for a moment, they are actually a duo whose music feels more divined than it is technically composed. What little is known only adds to the intrigue: Roman Norfleet (of The Cosmic Tones Research Trio and Be Present Art Group) and Andre Raiah (Brown Calvin of Brown Calculus) treat rhythm as a vessel for hidden knowledge, shaping sound the way mystics shape symbols.
This, their self-titled album, behaves almost like a coded manuscript, where textures operate as diagrams and melodies flicker like signals from some inner chamber. Drawing on esoteric texts, sacred imagery, and a deep trust in improvisation, they turn noise into philosophy and vibration into a kind of shared language, inviting the listener into a space where pulse and revelation seem inseparable. If I thought the title track might crack open some enlightenment, then I definitely got that wrong, although those lighter tones do bestow a sense of peace on our journey, a hint of human voices in the near distance pointing to a civilisation that might not be hostile. Soon enough, Other Dimensions (Neteru Realms) disorientate us once more; the tension in this place sounds like the tinnitus, the adjacent white noise, in your head the moment before passing out. Then our journey ends with Ezekiel’s Vision – A Mysterious Place – in which we might just have ended at the bottom of an empty, echoing well, watching up at the stars showering into meteors light-years away. As the saxophone squeezes its body with ever more frantic anxiety, my thoughts turn to the jazz missionaries who speak of their quest to find “the notes between the notes.” Well, this album feels like it might have parachuted us into the place where all those in-between notes are living, and no one has organised them into any kind of inventory yet. Which, when you step back and reflect on this weird and wild excursion we have just been on, is quite an exciting thought. New adventures in sound abound, and as a listener advisory, I would just add, turn off your mind and relax; I am sure you know the rest of the drill.
The MerKaBa Brotherhood (May 15th, 2026) Mississippi Records
Bandcamp: https://mississippirecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-merkaba-brotherhood