album review: 'promises' by floating points, pharoah sanders & the london symphony orchestra (9th year anniversary)

This was one of those years where the voting came down to the wire, where it could have been one of three and the winner only got in by a single vote within the correct timeframe. It was between Inside by Bo Burnham - which to be honest I can’t imagine that review going well because that album works best with the visual component and even then I have a lot of messy and unpopular opinions about that Burnham and that special - and the breakthrough project of South Korean shoegaze artist Parannoul, which I actually heard last year and chose not to cover because the production just did not work for me whatsoever.

That leaves us… with one of the most critically acclaimed albums of last year, a instrumental collaboration that in certain circles of experimental jazz and electronic music was widely hailed as a landmark, including by some peers. There are two names to be aware of here, the first being Floating Points, a British electronic producer who has toured with The xx, worked with Hikaru Utada this past year, and has a small but acclaimed catalog the past decade. He’s built his classically trained reputation for impeccable, textured dynamics, using a lot of analog instrumentation to interweave into electronic compositions, with a playful side that can still produce genuine beauty as he flits across various stripes of electronica. But his resume pales in comparison with Pharoah Sanders, a legendary saxophonist who’s worked with figures spanning John & Alice Coltrane, Leon Bridges, and a lot of the greats of avant-garde free jazz. I will freely admit right now that I don’t have the greatest depth when it comes to Sanders’ catalog - the man is over eighty and already a legend, with a frankly stacked run of albums in the late 60s and early 70s that I should really make the time to explore - but that’s a blemish on my record and how much I really need to do the proper deep dive within modern jazz; I cover the genre rarely, I often feel out of my depth, and while the project is actually shorter than you’d expect, it was the sort of project in which I wanted to give proper attention. If anything albums like this highlight despite nine years making videos just how much more I have to learn and grow as a critic, but if you’re more familiar with jazz and you’re looking for an expert’s analysis… look, you’re probably more equipped than I am for this, full disclosure. But with all of that in mind, what did I think of Promises?

Well… I don’t want to say that this isn’t good, or that it didn’t deliver exactly what the collaborators wanted and that many critics described with breathless enthusiasm; it’s a marvelous piece that’s excellently produced, melodically rich, impeccably balanced but still containing organic texture to showcase real humanity, and as many have highlighted delivers a moment of utterly ethereal beauty in the final third that is worth listening to the entire project to take in. But I also feel it’s one of those projects I can admire and respect more than I outright love it - there’s certainly a lot of charm to the piece and I understand how I’m supposed to feel, but it feels like I’m missing part of the impact, some of which comes through some structural critiques I have the project, but also with my lack of knowledge of Pharoah Sanders’ broader catalog; it’s like watching a clip of the climax point of a great movie, which can stand alone, but minus the narrative that has built to it, the emotional resonance might not be as potent.

So let’s talk about the components of this piece, which begins with a seven note melody that sounds like it’s being played on a harpsichord interweaving with a tinkling piano. That musical motif is creaking and frail, you can hear the textured movement of the keyboard as the orchestra will begin to well up around it… and then Pharoah Sanders starts blowing, and the saxophone bounds across that foundation. And it’s hard not to feel aware of how tactile and fragile it all feels: the saxophone might shine through, the arranged strings might create a foundation, but the delicacy of the increasingly fractured cyclical keyboard motif that holds the bottom, everything added has to be balanced off of that, be they gentle processed tones that feel almost spacey and psychedelic across ‘Movement 3’ amidst starry keys to the mouth noises that are closer to scat on ‘Movement 4’. It showcases a balance where if things get too fanciful and grand, there’s a playfully human juxtaposition, showcasing the improvisational push-and-pull you often get from great free jazz where part of the magic is how virtuoso playing will careen off whatever structure you have, where around ‘Movement 5’ the mix builds more swell and layers with a countermelody in the keys and synths off the main motif and Sanders’ fluttering sax. But then we get to the last four movements of the album, where aching strings rise more to the forefront across a larger, slower crescendo, so yearning and sincere in their sense of grandeur that you find yourself yearning for Sanders’ saxophone to break the rising tension. And yet it only returns when the mix has calmed to a far more spare and intimate place on ‘Movement 7’, where you can feel every shuddering breath behind the notes and more distant, burbling, futuristic flutters that gradually pick up more bass frequencies and cascading chaotic swell and it’s damn near magical! And then it ebbs away again, with fragmented keys and abortive organ feeling like half-heard transmissions from a signal in the vast open night, which leads to a false ending on ‘Movement 8’ where you’re left thinking that it’ll all hang unresolved… but if you listen very closely you can still hear faint breath, muffled taps, someone still in the room. And it leads to a final coda where minus that underlying foundational harpsichord line for the strings to keen out one last time.

So let’s get into some of those structural critiques, because there’s really not a lot to say about the frankly gorgeous production and interplay… and I think I have to start with that central seven note melody that repeats through nearly the entire piece. Don’t get me wrong, I like how it shakes and layers and decomposes and feels ever so slightly askew, but in terms of the actual tune it feels like a question constantly prodding for an answer that we never really get. Now for an album titled Promises, that kind of makes sense - it’s a leap of faith and trust that something will resolve, that the payoff will come… and I’m not quite sure it does, at least in a place where it makes the most sense. This is where we come to the movements themselves, and while it would make sense to see this as one continuous piece, the segments and splitting of movements can feel a bit odd, with the first five movements accounting for about 19 minutes and the last four for about 28 minutes… which again, makes sense in giving the strings crescendo plenty of room to breathe, but it can leave Sanders’ greater presence in the first five movements feeling slight, lacking in balance. It left me wondering why Sanders’ saxophone was not more of a counterweight on the back half of the album outside of ‘Movement 7’, where it would been useful in contrast to the spacey synths and strings, and the fact that he’s a far smaller presence on the final two movements feels like a misstep, where it becomes more about interplay between Floating Points and the orchestra directly. And that could have worked - Sanders’ improvisational style feels like an influence compositionally on the organ runs in ‘Movement 8’ - but the main melodic motif is a question being posed, a trust being extended, with Sanders’ saxophone as its response, he should have been involved in resolving it. This is also where we get to the false ending before the coda - it feels intentional to draw attention to the human beings and connection at the core, what could have been a good use of negative space, and yet when the strings come back, the ending there feels just as abortive if not moreso, leaving more questions than answers, especially after such a startlingly beautiful culmination in ‘Movement 7’.

And maybe that’s the point, an extended and open-ended challenge with its final promise, where there was a payoff that earned your faith, refocused the lens to highlight the humanity of that promise, and then places the final promise in your hands as it abruptly disappears into space. And it might feel amorphous, a little fragmented, where you’re not quite seeing all of the picture as it comes together… but hey, that’s the reality of what trust is, with abstract art often demanding a deeper promise in sincere engagement, because it will only give back what we choose to deliver in conversation. But I feel like there’s a difference between the promise made to the audience and those made internally within the work, and that’s where Promises feels a bit lopsided to me, where intentionally leaving odd gaps doesn’t always accentuate what can make the best moments of this piece so moving. But then again, this is jazz - it’s not enough to pay attention to the notes, but also to where the notes are not being played, and if there’s an album that knows how to create magic out of intangible spaces, it is this one, even if tonally it leaves you yearning for the promise to be fulfilled.

So you can understand why I am conflicted with this - most of what I’ve critiqued as structural frustrations on my part are not just intentional, but thematically important and will strike as resonant to those who buy in. And I genuinely want to buy into this album: Floating Points has a wonderful command of analog textures, I love how well this album commands dynamics and flows so effortlessly, the strings are heartbreaking, and Sanders’ playfully chaotic sensibilities are the perfect counterweight to the arranged, classical pomp. But sometimes you can fulfill every word of a promise to the letter, you can buy in and be left hanging and yet it all feels worth it… and I’m not sure I’m all the way there; again, I get how an album like this is supposed to make me feel and it so nearly gets there, but I feel like I’m the one missing the piece to make it properly click. Still, this is a damn impressive piece - absolutely not for everyone, as you’d expect experimental blends of classical music, electronic music, and free jazz, but for those who are curious, it might be a promise worth keeping.