Map of Absences

Album review

Haitian turntablist/producer Val Jeanty (aka Val-Inc) met Indian drummer and electronic musician Ravish Momin at an artist workshop in Brooklyn in 2017, and the two soon began collaborating as Turning Jewels Into Water. Continuing in the direction set by 2018 EP Which Way Is Home?, TJIW's first full-length is filled with improvisation-based creations that draw from the duo's combined ancestries by electronic instrumentation and samples. They construct broken rhythms using MIDI controllers and drum triggers, and ghostly voices are transmitted via turntable scratches. The choppy rhythms and unpredictable progressions make evident the spontaneity of the duo's creative process; everything sounds live and unprogrammed, and it all moves in a dream-like state. The album's title track mixes tribal drums with Delia Derbyshire-esque electronic tones, while "Desert Fire" is a sort of beguiling Afro-dub. The duo keep their ear to global dance music innovations, dedicating one track to Lisbon-based visionary Nídia and handing others over to producers such as Kenya's Slikback and Mexico City's Nueve Vidas. While informed by styles like footwork and kuduro, TJIW never try to directly emulate them, instead forging their own cross-cultural path which envisions a more positive, unified world.
© Paul Simpson /TiVo