We need to talk about André 3000 and his new album, New Blue Sun. Interviews starting ramping up last week about the album, with André saying, “there’s no bars,” that he won’t be rapping on the album. This is paired with the fact that he’s been seen wandering around the literal globe with a massive flute in tow. Clearly this record was going to be something different.
From my perspective, it’s an ambient, new age, world music endeavor. It sounds like echoes of Alice Coltrane and Laraaji, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green, like a warm afternoon laying in the sun. To really help me understand this record, it was actually the Pitchfork review that gave me the most insight. I knew he had worked with some of the folks from Leaving Records, who I came across in the last couple months, but it sounds like it was truly a jam record, for lack of a better term. And I think it’s that variety of artits and sounds that really make this record something special.