Deepblak’s Chief Alchemist Aybee come with his fourth full-length studio album, ‘The Odyssey’. As befitting its grand title, this newest long-player finds him concerned with personal journeys: both the personal one that has brought him to this point – living in Berlin, 15 years since founding Deepblak in his native Oakland – and the one that beckons for him personally and creatively in future: Aybee sees himself as being halfway up a mountain, looking back on where he has come from, and to where he will be headed next – both concepts play a profound role in the emotional textures of the album, which in true Deepblak fashion draws from jazz, deep house, techno, hip hop, blues, experimentation, cinema, space, time and infinity. ‘The Odyssey’ represents a change-up for AYBEE in several ways, forged from a desire to keep expectations at bay and throw something of a curveball for those who felt they had him pegged: “a good pitcher always keeps you off balance”. This newest work saw him deliberately limit his sound palette in a creative exercise that challenged him to create a full body of work from a small pre-selected library of sonic elements. While this was restricting in some aspects, the approach to – as he puts it – “throw the ingredients in a basket and cook with it later” gave him more freedom to focus on atmosphere and groove instead of putting hours into trying out different options – “otherwise I’d still be in the studio now trying to work out which hi-hat to use on the third track!”

vinyl / CD