We in all probability might have figured this all out from merely listening to “New Blue Solar” when it dropped on Friday, however simply in case, André 3000 spent the earlier 72 hours on a publicity blitz, managing the world’s expectations. “I’ve at all times type of simply been exploring what I can do and simply type of driving the trip,” he instructed NPR of his intuitive transformation from rapper to flutist. “I by no means knew that rapping would even take me to producing, and producing would take me to taking part in devices, and devices would get me right here … I see this as simply [being] additional down the highway.”
In order that’s the place he’s at. In OutKast, he helped create among the most sumptuously good music we’ll hear in our lifetimes — rap, pop or in any other case. However as soon as the duo ceased inventive operations in 2006, André 3000 went into semi-seclusion, falling deeper for the recordings of John Coltrane, taking on the saxophone and bass clarinet earlier than finally changing to the softness of the flute, which he has been filmed taking part in in public by overzealous Instagramers with nice frequency in recent times — one thing he bemoaned to NPR as “a ‘The place’s Waldo?’ type of factor.”
But when his dedication to jazz ever appeared performative, right here’s my very own eyewitness testimony on the contrary: Again in 2017, I noticed André 3000 within the crowd at a busy jazz competition in New York Metropolis, absorbing the environment by his lonesome between a studying from the poet Fred Moten and a efficiency by the Dave Burrell Quartet. The beatific expression on his face was virtually stunning. Extensive eyes. Extensive smile. Absorbent. Ever see one among civilization’s best mindblowers getting their thoughts blown?
“New Blue Solar” sounds prefer it was made to appease minds. All through, André 3000 blows pliant melody traces by way of his digital flute, supported by a delicate coterie of Los Angeles jazz musicians he met by way of a random run-in at a luxurious grocery retailer — percussionist Carlos Niño, guitarist Nate Mercereau, keyboardist Surya Botofasina and others.
The entire crew sounds all-in on the album’s opening observe, “I swear, I Actually Wished To Make A ‘Rap’ Album However This Is Actually The Means The Wind Blew Me This Time.” (As defined within the aforementioned media offensive, the wordy-funny music titles are supposed to make the album appear much less lofty.) And from there, they improvise their manner by way of one other 56-minutes of ambient, jazzlike fragrance, guided by the bandleader’s profitable melodic and textural instincts. It feels clean, plush, mild, unfastened, intuitive, immersive, current, nice.
The additional you sink in, although, the extra you may get the sense that “New Blue Solar” isn’t making a world a lot as becoming a member of one — a sprawling musical ecosystem beforehand populated by the worldly breathwork of jazz hero Yusef Lateef, the extra-dimensional soundscaping of Jon Hassell, the chic melodies that new age flutist Edward Christmas recorded underneath the title Swami Kriya Ramananda, the alien EVI (digital valve instrument) taking part in of Justin Walter, the synthetic woodwinds of composer Elori Saxl, and extra.
This new turf is a great distance from the roiling middle of Southern rap music, or the sparkly summit of American pop, or some other precinct the place André 3000 as soon as dominated supreme — but it surely’s a lovely place to go to. Or keep.