Label: Pi Recordings, 2026

Personnel - Brandon Ross: electric guitar, banjo, soprano guitar; Melvin Gibbs: electric bass; JT Lewis: drums; Georgia Anne Muldrow; vocals, keyboard.

Harriet Tubman—named after the American abolitionist and social activist—is an idiosyncratic jazz-funk trio that crosses genres naturally with a non-clichéd aesthetic. Here, they place Black Music in a new light in the company of Grammy-nominated vocalist/producer Georgia Anne Muldrow.

Electrical Field of Love channels their passion into 12 concise tracks, demonstrating a magnificent command of mood and atmosphere. Full of strength, “Flowers” opens the proceedings with evocative, mysterious undercurrents. An entrancing hip-hop-inflected rhythm anchors the piece, soon joined by a rugged, distorted tapestry of guitar and bass. The trio continues to rock and funkify in a fevered experimental uproar, with Muldrow’s voice soaring above. Her contributions are even more striking on the ascending “Anatomical Fable of the Elements” and “Isom Dart Was”, which flows with contemporary crossover appeal as funk and R&B are shaped by the trio’s noir imagination.

“Insisting” feels at once vulnerable, volatile, and oppressive, featuring layered, spectral vocals, while “How You Rise” unfolds with transfiguring intensity, opening with Ross’ clamorous, wailing guitar and anchored by Gibbs’ robust 4/4 grooves.

Boasting a powerful sound, “Assata” builds and deconstructs over Lewis’ hypnotic rhythms. Its simple yet effective harmonic treatment gives way to the greater complexity of “Don’t Stand a Chance, After the Boom”, where an insistently cyclic and daringly polyrhythmic approach is enriched by clever electronics and vivid percussion.

“Up From the Gum” conjures a disquieting and perplexing mood, driven by urgent syncopation and a six-beat bass groove at its core. The group crafts immersive spaces that reveal their true musical identity. Similarly, Muldrow’s “A Black Song” unfolds as a self-expressive experiment in jazz fusion, featuring wavering keyboards and a strong rhythmic flow driven by Lewis’ inventive drum figures.

Messages and themes unfold within a narrative concept that often feels like reopening an old wound in order to better heal it. Awash with fresh, intense energy, this is a special collaborative album that establishes a deep-rooted connection to the history of Black Music.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Flower ► 03 - Isom Dart Was ► 05 - When You Rise ► 08 - Assata

Label: Sunnyside Records, 2018

Personnel - Brandon Ross: guitar; Melvin Gibbs: electric bass; JT Lewis: drums.

Powerhouse trio Harriet Tubman (named after the African-American slave turned abolitionist and political activist) - Brandon Ross on guitar, Melvin Gibbs on bass, and JT Lewis on drums - continues to trail an audacious path in modern music without confining themselves to a particular genre. Notwithstanding, jazz, blues and rock, in its written and improvised forms, can be considered their strongest motivations, especially if we take a closer look to their newest album The Terror End of Beauty, a great addition to the Sunnyside Records’ catalog.

Gibbs penned the opening track, “Farther Unknown”, and shaped it as a danceable psychedelia, plotted with a steady, highly charged tribal African pulse and Hendrixian distorted guitar sounds. Call it acid Afro-rock if you like.

The bassist shows his compositional versatility by setting a completely different mood on the title track, a tribute to guitarist Sonny Sharrock and one of the hippest tracks on the record. There’s a balladic jazz vision here, but also the dirty texture associated with the alternative rock music genre, which is indisputably alluring. It evolves into something ampler, with Lewis’ kinetic drumming underpinning a massive noise-rock experience.

The remaining compositions are credited to the trio and their producer, Scotty Hard, except “Redemption Song”, a noir, free-form reading of Bob Marley’s song of freedom, here turned into a harmonically clear rock anthem. Although we can’t pronounce the latter tune as reggae, even coming from Marley, we can identify the genre disguised on the playful “Five Points”, which overlaps tempos and also melds funk and electronic music in an experimental crossing between Front Line Assembly and Parliament-Funkadelic.

“3000 Worlds” also sprawls some funk through the work of Gibbs and Lewis, who stick to a rounded funky ostinato and a hi-hat-centered rhythm, respectively. In contrast, Ross dives in dark expressive melodies.

“The Green Book Blues” is another danceable, hardcore, yet relentlessly groovy piece in the line of The Prodigy but with occasional percussive thumps instead of a highly syncopated rhythm. Regardless of the change in the groove, the arcane mood is maintained. Unlike this piece, “Unseen Advance of the Aquafarian” doesn’t have the word blues in the title but is heavily rooted in the genre. It also displays a strong electronic-like vibe.

Not conflicting with the rest, but definitely closer to a prog-metal à-la Nine Inch Nails, “Protoaxite” sort of suffocates in a raucous, rock-powered atmosphere.

By intelligently interspersing moments of opaque obscurity and sheer beauty, Harriet Tubman achieves a perfect balance in its incisive and concise writing. The record, not too dense but not too immediate, never refrains in emotion and rewards in abundance after multiple listenings.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Farther Unknown ► 07 - Redemption Song ► 09 - The Terror End of Beauty