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I have a secret pleasure for last-minute musical discoveries, those albums released around the end of November that don’t have enough time to settle and make it into my year-end personal rankings. Every year, I’ve had one, and the last-minute album of 2020 is the latest album by the great King Khan.
For those who don’t know, King Khan is the torchbearer of the '00s for the hottest and baddest garage soul on the scene. Based in Berlin, he has navigated the vast sea of garage and its main protagonists over the last 20 years, thanks to a live stage presence that makes the 1970s Renato Zero look sober. But when listening to this latest effort, “Infinite Ones”, one might wonder if he is really the author of the album. Yes, because what we are faced with is a bold tribute album to unorthodox jazz; I’m referring to the kind played by the likes of Pharaoh Sanders, Archie Shepp, Ornette Coleman, and particularly the afrofuturistic twists of Sun Ra and the ethiojazz of Mulatu Astatke.
On paper, given his musical background, there was a risk of the usual “wishful-thinking” tribute, but instead, good Khan delivers 11 tracks, each more spot-on than the last, unveiling an unknown side of him, here credited as an incredible multi-instrumentalist. Obviously, such skill needs someone “in the business” to be realized, and so Khan was accompanied directly by musicians from those times, particularly Terry Allen, the legendary saxophonist of the Sun Ra Arkestra. The great thing, which makes the album accessible even to those not familiar with the genre, is the incredible ability to compress into tracks between 2 and 5 minutes, doses of jazz sometimes more spiritual, sometimes more canonical, sometimes orchestral, sometimes Afrocentric, while remaining credible and enjoyable.
In essence, it’s jazz played with a garage approach; on paper, a mess, in reality, one of the best albums of 2020.
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