The ‘un-muting’ or ‘sonic restitution’ of African instruments held in Western museum collections, this project began with a recording session in October 2023 at the British Museum in London, when Hoyt was granted access to instruments from the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. These recordings were then developed in his studio, blending in African and Western instruments from his own collection.

‘This record is not an album but a diagram, a blackground score for a people who have never stopped dancing. Instruments exiled into the vitrines of empire, their voices stilled by taxonomic theft, now murmur and hum again. This is restitution by vibration, and the sounds you hear refuse to be forgotten, to be fixed, to refuse to die. You won’t find Western time signatures here; you’ll find time folding, spilling, catching fire. His compositions bespeak an afro-sonic-philo-sophy, more drastic than gnostic. These desperate times call for desperate pleasures.’

Four portions of lonesome country, by Toody Cole from Dead Moon, and The Rats.

His unmissable debut as leader in 1960, bringing with him Sam Jones and Jimmy Cobb from the Adderleys’ set-up. Highlights include the reclamations of three mighty Timmons originals — Moanin’, already recorded by Art Blakey, and Cannonball’s This Here and Dat Dere — and a near-solo rendition of Lush Life.
Unmistakable, irresistible jazz pianism — grooving, direct, gospelised, funky.

‘By turns gleeful, sensitive, urgent and ruminative, this is a brilliant set that plays to the trio’s formidable strengths… Hearteningly delightful contemporary music-making’ (The Guardian).
‘A spare, de-cluttered, étude-like qualitymusic of sometimes unassuming but penetrating emotion and structural focus… full of the detail given to artists with powers of judgment to match the command of their instruments’ (Jazzwise).

Pure loveliness. Proper music-making,
DIY Classical, but nothing slapdash or posey. Intimate and tentative, seamed with risk, occasional mis-steps, dodgy tuning, minor technical fuck-ups; but driven by gripping, stilled dedication and deep musical understanding.
Double bass, electric guitar, flute, melodica, singing; recorded at home in NYC, on dodgy gear, with snug, woody, shhshh-ing, analogue-style ambience.
The trio hovers between cheerful relish — who’s that giggling at the back — and hushed, humble reverence, basking in the processes of musical communion and learning. They play like they are gingerly passing on a precious, fragile gift; but without prissy conceit.
Luminous selections from the last six hundred years — John of Dunstable meets Friedrich Nietzsche — are lovingly arranged by the group, with a bent for stripped-to-the-bone, emotionally restrained sublimity, steady as she blows.
Very warmly recommended. Soul food.