PRODUCT DETAILS
A Semblance: Of Return is the new album from South African drummer, composer, and bandleader Asher Gamedze, available on Northern Spy Records as a limited "Emulsive Return" clear smoke 12" LP, and digipak CD.Gamedze gathers a close ensemble of longtime collaborators to explore what he calls "practices of assembly" - ways of making sound, and imagining new and old modes of freedom. Based in the independent music scenes of Cape Town and rooted in Pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness, Of Return extends the political and musical commitments that have defined Gamedze's work from Dialectic Soul (On The Corner, 2020), to Turbulence and Pulse (International Anthem, 2022) and Constitution (International Anthem, 2024) while opening a newly collective chapter in his practice, this time on Northern Spy.The band on the album - Ru Slayen (percussion), Nobuhle Ashanti (keys & synth), Zwide Ndwandwe (bass), and Keegan Steenkamp (trumpet), with Gamedze on drums - formed as a social unit: a group for whom music is part of a broader shared life, full of playing, thinking, laughing, and struggling. That ethos animates the music. Across the album's two sides, Of Return serves as a gathering place: a living room, a rehearsal, a shady club, a study group, a home. The music moves with a grounded, searching energy, shifting between group vocals, groove-heavy ensemble passages, and moments of stark melodic clarity. The grooves are earthy and lived-in; the improvisations feel like conversations; the lyric fragments echo the project's probing around notions of return as integral to any forward, future-oriented motion.Of Return enacts both return and departure, or more precisely, extension/elaboration. This it does through a rootedness in the traditions and politics of the Cape underground, and opening a sonic invitation to dream, to struggle together, and, fundamentally, to assemble.
Tracklist:
- Stranger No Death
- Progressive
- Air
- Following Up
- Distractions
- Of The Fire
- War
- Lowland
- Extension
- State (Of The Internation)
- Turnin'
UPC: 309272739220
Label: Northern Spy Records
Release Date: 2.27.26
Format: Vinyl Record
SHIPPING & RETURNS
SHIPPING
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- Read our full shipping policy.
RETURNS
- Change your mind? No problem: No nonsense 30-day return policy on all domestic orders.
- Read our full return policy.
PRODUCT REVIEWS
ABOUT US
For over 10 years, Pale Blue Dot Records has shared and supported your love of vinyl records. We are an independent online record store located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and we’re passionate about music, the vinyl community, and doing our part to protect the environment. Learn more about us here.
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Good packaging, product was in good condition and showed up on time great album no problems with any of the vinyls either very happy with it.
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