HARPER,BEN - BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE - RECORD

"It was like I was moving forward and venturing into places I had never been before. Taking everything I've learned from every other record and kind of setting fire to it all and starting over," Ben Harper says of his 2022 albumBloodline Maintenance."And I knew the sounds I was hearing in my head were so unorthodox that I had to do most of it myself."

The result is a fearless and immensely soulful work largely inspired by the loss of a longtime friend and the lingering influence of a mercurial and charismatic father. Along with guitar and bass, Harper also played the drums including an eclectic assortment of percussions. The deliberately open spaces and accented beats influenced in large part by the exploratory rhythms of the hip-hop he has loved since his teens. The result is less a direct influence thanthe applying of hip-hop's inventiveness to longstanding paradigms of soul, blues and jazz, spinning it all forward into a reconfiguration of a new black Americana.

Tracks:

1. Below Sea Level
2. We Need to Talk About It
3. Where Did We Go Wrong
4. Problem Child
5. Need to Know Basis
6. It Ain't No Use
7. More Than Love
8. Smile at the Mention
9. Honey, Honey
10. Knew the Day Was Comin'
11. Maybe I Can't

Label: Chrysalis