Layers

Since the release of his album Black Noise 2084, Khalab (aka Raffaele Costantino, radio host, producer, and founder of the Hyperjazz label) has been known for his Afro-futurist sound, working with traditional music (on M’berra too, where he recorded with Tuareg musicians in a Mauritanian refugee camp) and transforming it into darker, dystopian soundscapes with glitchy electronics and repetitive, hypnotic beats. On Layers he takes a different direction, while still holding onto some of Khalab’s signature sounds. It’s far less claustrophobic than his previous work, more open and musical right from the onset: “Drone Ra,” with Italian jazz vocalist Alessia Obino and British-Bahraini trumpeter Yazz Ahmed starts with a soothing chant and delicate trumpet, the lyrics giving a first hint to the album’s spiritual leanings. On “Tunnel of Jealousy” Khalab returns to the gloomier, trance sounds of his past with a droning bass and spiraling rhythms. The album is an ode to everything and everyone who has contributed to the producer’s musical journey until this point, hence the name Layers, and many of his longtime collaborators from the UK and Italian jazz scenes make an appearance. It feels like a collective effort, one that celebrates music’s transcendent, spiritual qualities.