The second chapter of the veteran bassist’s Anamibia Sessions series sees him bending his experimental praxis into familiar shapes.
Melvin Gibbs’ oeuvre runs the gamut from jazz to funk to art rock. He’s worked with free-jazz legend Sonny Sharrock, no-wave pioneer Arto Lindsay, and tropicália deity Caetano Veloso, and is a founding member of freak-funk trio Harriet Tubman and cosmic jam band Body Meπa. In his solo work, he’s just as hard to pin down, and his new record Amasia: Anamibia Sessions 2 is a case in point.
When coming into the second part of a “sessions” series, one generally expects to hear familiar sounds or themes from the first. But where Anamibia Sessions 1: The Wave is a freeform, largely atonal suite, all locked grooves and static, Amasia could conceivably be called a beats tape.
Here, Gibbs draws inspiration from Miles Davis and Teo Macero’s production on Davis’ pioneering fusion albums, especially his 1975 LP Agharta, to create knotty but clearly enunciated instrumentals, slow-cooked sonic stews in which every ingredient retains its taste. Opener, “Felonious Monk,”sees Onaje Allan Gumbs’ electric piano slinking across Gibbs’ angular trap drum programming and warped sound effects from a bombed-out metropolis of 2000s blockbuster rap production. “Gullah Style Jack” then takes us back to hip-hop’s jazz-funk golden age, where Pete Cosey’s caterwalling guitar provides some ’70s stank while Gumbs and Napoleon Maddox — whose inspired beatboxing syncopates four of the project’s six tracks — give it that slick turn-of-the-’90s feel until the whole thing accelerates to into hyperdrive near the end.
Tracks from the album’s more experimental back half find Gibbs back in his experimental bag, emphasizing celestial sound design over rhythmic cohesion. But closer “O.G. Dreams of Lost Love,” while perhaps a bit too drifting to freestyle over, brings us slowly back to Earth, Maddox’s mouth noises scratching against Gibbs’ bass to provide the sense of a firm ground. Overall, Amasia: Anamibia Sessions 2 is an unexpected sequel that pulls together a slew of unstable elements and assembles the horde into an immaculately oiled machine.