JoVia Armstrong: The Antidote Suite
Black Earth Music

The Antidote Suite satisfies on two counts in particular, as a strong personal expression by percussionist JoVia Armstrong and as the debut release from Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Music imprint. It's likewise fitting that Armstrong's album—more half-hour mini-album, really—should be both Afrofuturist in style and include Mitchell as a flute-playing guest. Guitarist Jeff Parker, pianist Amr Fahmy, vocalist Yaw Agyeman, and rapper Teh'Ray “Phenom” Hale also contribute, though the core of Armstrong's Eunoia Society combines her on modular hybrid cajon kit with bassist Isaiah Sharkey and five-string violinist Leslie DeShazor.

While Alice Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, and Pauline Oliveros are cited as influences by Armstrong, Promises, the recent well-received collaboration between Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders, arguably serves as a better touchstone. In her music too, atmospheric electronics and ambient textures merge with jazz elements to generate a heady Afrofuturist swirl capable of inducing meditative altered states.

The Antidote Suite isn't Armstrong's first release, however. The self-taught percussionist and composer from Detroit issued her debut album Fuzzy Blue Robe Chronicles in 2009 and has performed as a member of Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble. She's currently a PhD candidate in the University of California Irvine's Integrated Composition Improvisation and Technology program (ICIT), is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and was recognized at the 'Black Women in Jazz Awards' in 2015. In fact, Armstrong composed The Antidote Suite to accompany Black Index, an exhibit presented at the University of California Irvine dealing with issues of Black self-representation.

Musically, the recording's five tracks largely succeed. Fittingly the set begins with a trippy exercise in introspective absorption, “Breathe,” that sees guitar and violin phrases rippling across an oceanic wash of bells, cymbal flourishes, and droning atmospherics. Formally speaking, Parker might be a guest on the album, but here and elsewhere he and DeShazor make for a powerful Eunoia Society front-line. “Meditations on Oya” grounds the freewheeling psychedelia of the opening track with a breezy jazz-flavoured cocktail of flute, acoustic piano, and percussion, the track a great showcase for Mitchell, Fahmy, Armstrong, and, during the second half, Parker. Slowing things down, “Beautifully Black” provides a lovely ballad context for DeShazor to elevate the music with an inspired statement on five-string electric violin.

August 2022