After the surprise release of a live album recorded in quarantine, ÌFÉ is back with three new spiritual tracks that commune with the afterlife.
In 2017, the Afro-American producer and percussionist Otura Mun captured the attention of listeners around the world with a grandiose debut album. With IIII+IIII, he and his band delivered a true electro-religious ceremony, where dancehall, trap and Afrobeat were intertwined with Yoruba culture, which he also represents as a priest. With world quarantine, ÌFÉ was forced to stop filming and refocus on creation. From Puerto Rico, he took advantage of his summer isolation to play online and refine his art at home. Deprived of his band, he went into exploration mode, even creating his own version of J Dilla’s “Fuck the Police.” In duet with singer Lavoski, the new female voice who joined the project at the beginning of the year, Otura released 2020 Live at ILÉ ÌFÉ at the beginning of the month, a bootleg of classics and unreleased songs recorded live and linked together.
The Living Dead / Ashé Bogbo Egun, also recorded live at home by the duo, is ÌFÉ’s new EP, heralding the long-awaited album scheduled for early 2021. Inspired by the spiritual practices that the artist shares with his ancestors, these three new tracks are an electronic interpretation of the traditional Lucumí ceremony carried out by the Cuban Yoruba diaspora. The prayers sung in homage to the dead vibrate to the sound of the batá, the ceremonial drum used in an emotional electronic alliance between Afro-Cuban folklore and religious music.
“One of the things that has helped me confront the difficulty in dealing with the sadness and pain associated with the deaths of those around us is my belief that death in the physical world is not the end.”
The EP will be released on November 17, 2020. Pre-order it here.
The live album was released on October 2, order it here.
Listen to ÌFÉ in our playlist Songs of the Week on Spotify and Deezer.
