Asher Gamedze is a South African “drummer, historian, cultural worker, and political organizer” who has found his way into the orbit of International Anthem, the Chicago-based label that does a great job of building bridges between the jazz world and indie music fans like me. Gamedze has played with artists like Angel Bat Dawid, and his 2020 debut as a bandleader, Dialectic Soul, inspired acclaim for the way it filtered South Africa’s history of violence and colonialism into astral jazz. In May he’ll follow it with Turbulence And Pulse, a double album released through International Anthem and Johannesburg-based Mushroom Hour Half Hour.

Gamedze explains the album’s concept like so:

Time in music is a metaphor for thinking about time in history and how time moves. The way we’re taught history is generally in a way that robs people of agency in imagining themselves as part of history and how it unfolds. It is something that happens to us. I think there’s a productive metaphor in that because the sense of time in music is created by musicians playing together. If we can use that to think about history and time in history, you can see that, actually, history is created by people in a whole range of ways. At the heart of it, historical motion is created by people organized and acting together, whether for progressive or reactionary ends.

He’s beginning the rollout with “Wynter Time,” a nine-minute exploration that finds Gamedze joined by Thembinkosi Mavimbela on bass, Robin Fassie on trumpet, and Buddy Wells on sax. The song is dedicated to Black Caribbean radical intellectual Sylvia Wynter, author of the book Black Metamorphosis. The song’s video, directed by Adrian Van Wyk, addresses the fight against Amazon’s development in Cape Town. Watch below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Turbulence’s Pulse”
02 “Wynter Time”
03 “Locomotion”
04 “If It Rains. To Pursue Truth”
05 “Melancholia”
06 “Alibama”
07 “Can’t See The Sun”
08 “Sometimes I Think To Myself”
09 “Out Stepped Zim”
10 “Underground Formation”
11 “Melancholia (Live in Cairo)”
12 “If It Rains. To Pursue Truth (Live in Cairo)”
13 “Out Stepped Zim”

Turbulence And Pulse is out 5/5 on International Anthem/Mushroom Hour Half Hour.