Posted by London based artist Baba Ali has shared his new single ‘Black Wagon’.
Baba Ali’s winding path has taken him from adolescence in New Jersey to his current base in London, fusing no wave, left field techno, and ‘classic’ songwriting along the way.
There’s a lot more to come, with Baba Ali recently sealing off lockdown recording sessions with Hot Chip’s Al Doyle.
‘Black Wagon’ is a difficult beast to pin down, a song that seems to work on multiple levels at the same time – barbed sounds interlocking with flashes of beatific melody.
Soulful but incredibly raw, ‘Black Wagon’ is a reflection on community and mortality.
He comments…
“Where I live in London, my window faces the high street and I’m not too far from a church. In the Autumn there were a lot of funerals, and the horse and carriage procession would often come down the street. It’s quite an arresting image; it feels like it’s from a different era. That’s the ‘black wagon’, and the rest of the lyrics are me reminiscing about the feeling of going to raves and coming home at sunrise… All that fun stuff that you try to make the most of before that black wagon comes to carry you off.”
“This was a song that got an instant positive response from Al when he first heard the demo. Towards the end of mixing, Joe Goddard (Hot Chip) came in to lend an outside perspective, and his added excitement for the tune confirmed we were on the right track.”
Tune in now.
Photo Credit: William Spooner
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