Colourful ancestral jams blend live musicianship and infectious tropical rhythms with a variety of voices, melodies and skilful refrains. Sharon Katz and The Peace Train collaborate with Afrika Mamas, for a brilliantly uplifting and fiercely unique new project.
Blending world-music harmonies and anthemic peaks with intimate contemplations and smooth guitar licks and keys, Desert Air is both familiar and structurally fresh, and this much is clear from the opening creative earworm Oh Baby Baby.
If you’re already missing the good vibes of the summertime, this album will get you swaying in the warmth all over again.
Promising six original songs and a handful of talented musicians and vocalists, not least of all Afrika Mamas adding a distinct vocal choir, Desert Air promises dreamy surf rock and jazz classics like Someone To Love, as well as the softer, heartfelt inspiration of the title-track.
Sharon Katz’ leading voice and guitar style remain as clear calling cards for the whole project, but so do the Afrika Mamas in their faultless passion and power. So Free is perhaps the most distinct and unmissable example of both, and is a striking and beautiful highlight from Desert Air.
After this, however, A Place I Call Home is equally stunning, with lush guitar sounds and compelling vocals and imagery.
Then to finish, sultry basslines and a cool kind of groove let Turn The Page add one last dose of inspiration and possibility, with Karen guiding us through another poetic reflection that’s cool yet quiet in its confidence and positivity.
Download or stream Desert Air.
