1. Assimilation (feat. Dylema)
2. His Mother’s Eyes (feat Jermain Jackman)
3. Brother Andrew – The Investigator (feat. Brother Andrew Muhammad)
4. Break the chains
5. A Police Service, not a Police Force (feat. Lee Jasper)
6. Hackney Ain’t Innocent (feat. Yolanda Lear)
7. On the Daily (feat Ugochi Nwaogwugwu)
8. Say Black (feat. Dylema) *
9. The Babylon Encounter (feat. Janette Collins and Leroy Logan)
10. Witness the Whiteness (feat. Adam Elliot Cooper)
11. Lifeline (feat. Zara McFarlane)
Includes unlimited streaming of The Architecture Of Oppression Part 1
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
Purchasable with gift card
£20GBPor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
1. Assimilation (feat. Dylema)
2. His Mother’s Eyes (feat Jermain Jackman)
3. Brother Andrew – The Investigator (feat. Brother Andrew Muhammad)
4. Break the chains
5. A Police Service, not a Police Force (feat. Lee Jasper)
6. Hackney Ain’t Innocent (feat. Yolanda Lear)
7. On the Daily (feat Ugochi Nwaogwugwu)
8. Say Black (feat. Dylema) *
9. The Babylon Encounter (feat. Janette Collins and Leroy Logan)
10. Witness the Whiteness (feat. Adam Elliot Cooper)
11. Lifeline (feat. Zara McFarlane)
Note - Product mock-up for illustrative purposes. The vinyl is clear with red splatter.
Includes unlimited streaming of The Architecture Of Oppression Part 1
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
edition of 1000
44 remaining
Purchasable with gift card
£21GBPor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
1. Assimilation (feat. Dylema)
2. His Mother’s Eyes (feat Jermain Jackman)
3. Brother Andrew – The Investigator (feat. Brother Andrew Muhammad)
4. Break the chains
5. A Police Service, not a Police Force (feat. Lee Jasper)
6. Hackney Ain’t Innocent (feat. Yolanda Lear)
7. On the Daily (feat Ugochi Nwaogwugwu)
8. Say Black (feat. Dylema) *
9. The Babylon Encounter (feat. Janette Collins and Leroy Logan)
10. Witness the Whiteness (feat. Adam Elliot Cooper)
11. Lifeline (feat. Zara McFarlane)
12. Reparations (Ft. Great Okuson & Sarah Solomon)
Includes unlimited streaming of The Architecture Of Oppression Part 1
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
Purchasable with gift card
£9GBPor more
about
‘Lifeline’ is the stunning second single taken from The Brkn Record’s forthcoming debut album, ‘The Architecture of Oppression Part 1’. A ground-breaking concept album from Jake Ferguson of The Heliocentrics. It is a critical journey through the eyes of Black Britons, blending powerful and sobering narratives with psychedelic and soulful symphonies.
Fronted by MOBO award-winning Brownswood Recordings artist Zara McFarlane, ‘Lifeline’ is a paean to strength, solidarity and hope atop a blazing psychedelic storm with sonic echoes of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Venus In Furs’.” The song was born during a period when Jake had been listening to Josh White and Johnny Shines and imagined himself sitting alone on a porch somewhere pondering his future. He describes what happened next, “inspired by this scene, I picked up my Thai guitar, which is a four string instrument with a very bluesy, cranky sound, and then the main hook line came to me. I kept playing it over and over again and thought about recording it on its own without other instruments. After a while I started to lay down the first main line, then layered it up a few times to make it sound more lush. Sitting next to the Thai guitar was my electric tanpura which seemed to be calling me to use it which I promptly did to get that drone sound. Next thing I know and I am immersing myself, as usual, in the work of Richard Evans, one of my favourite arrangers of all time and, the man behind Cadet's Soulful Strings which is where I got the inspiration to have strings follow the Thai guitar hook.”
The drums were added to the track by Jake’s long-time collaborator from The Heliocentrics, Malcolm Catto. This loose breakbeat drumming, haunting strings and psychedelic drone culminated in something akin to a tripped-out version of Rotary Connection’s ‘Memory Band’. Jake knew he would need a singer who could cut through, and Zara McFarlane was his first choice. "The clarity and precision of Zara's vocals offered a real juxtaposition to the 'roughness' of the bluesy drone. Also, Zara dug deep to give her own perspective on racism that I hadn't heard before.”
Zara’s serene voice has a magnetic pull that draws everything together on the track. The lyrical content is equally powerful, which she summarises as "an observation of how decisions, made by ourselves and others, affect our circumstances and consequences and thus the pulse of our lives from that moment on.”
credits
from The Architecture Of Oppression Part 1,
track released August 19, 2021
Performers:
Vocals: Zara McFarlane
Bass, Guitars, Thai Guitar, Whale Harp: Jake Ferguson
Drums: Malcolm Catto
Strings: Raven Bush
WRITER/AUTHOR – Zara McFarlane
COMPOSER - Jake Ferguson
PRODUCER - Jake Ferguson
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER – David Buttle
ARRANGEMENT – Jake Ferguson
LYRICS LANGUAGE - English
EXPLICIT LANGUAGE - TBC
MIXING ENGINEER - Jake Ferguson
PRE-MASTERED BY – Malcom Catto
MASTERED BY - Pete Norman at Finyl Tweek
The brand new musical project led and produced by multi-instrumentalist Jake Ferguson, bassist and co-founder of the acclaimed Heliocentrics (Now Again, Strut, Madlib Invazion, Soundway).
supported by 37 fans who also own “Lifeline (feat. Zara McFarlane)”
Like so many others, this came like a bolt out of the blue and, even though it's well before payday, I had to have this astonishing album on vinyl to prove it exists. The feel of the tunes makes me feel like the Impressions do, Curtis Mayfield, the big spaces and instinctive horns and stuff drifting in and out. Great grooves and I can see lots of ghosts nodding along to this with big smiles on their faces. At last! Anthony Cottrell
Younge remasters and reissues his Wax Poetics debut, a super bad OST inspired by blaxploitation soundtracks of the 1970s. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 16, 2014
