Anthony Joseph - Time

Anthony Joseph is a poet, and makes storytelling an art. In his fifth album Time, released on 31 March, Joseph brings together the warmth of the Caribbean, the dark intensity of jazz and the off beat mood of synthetic devices to make up a psychedelic and attractive end product.

Joseph is indeed a poet: teaching creative writing at the University of London, he has also published four volumes of poetry and a novel, while now being working towards a doctorate – a little moonlighter, if you will: quite an impressive career since he arrived in London in 1989 with only a single suitcase.

On this album he collaborated with NY based bassist and singer Meshell Ndegocello, bringing with her a funky jazz influence. It is also a return to Joseph's Trinidadian sources, as the album opener 'Time: Archeology' makes clear, dealing with the Caribbean's history long before Christopher Columbus' “discovery”.

The second song, 'Hustle to Live', offers a little preview to Magic Malik's flautist's skills, more fully expressed on the eighth 'Alice of the River', a touching song about a suicidal wife concluding on the sobering line “the life that Alice bore could kill from grief”.

The third 'Shine', praising a woman with low self-esteem, is followed by the funky fourth 'Tamarind' on feel-good chords and loving verses like “Everyone says she's beautiful. She lights the dark scene of her glow – that's Tamarind” - and ending with strings for the romantic touch.

The fifth song, 'Michael X (Narcissus)', opens on dangerous, hypnotic drumbeats and fast cymbal to tell the dark tale of a Trinidadian hustler and so-called Black revolutionary – he was executed by hanging in 1975 in Port of Spain, Anthony Joseph's birthplace.

The ninth 'Girl with a Grenade', inspired by the young Pakistani girl – and now Nobel Peace Prize – Malala Yousafzai, and the seventh track 'Heir (for women who wish)' both take on a dark mood. The latter, opening on heavy electric guitar and dealing with women unwillingly pregnant, manages to get through a feeling of uneasiness and loneliness such as that these mothers and unwanted children must feel.

We continue with the sixth track, 'Kezi', one of the album's highlights. Fast-paced, on a rapso style – a Trinidad fusion of calypso/soca music and rap – this song will make you want to dance, the flow of Joseph's words swinging in perfect harmony with the rhythm. This is one of the album's most political songs, addressing the Trinidad people directly.

The tenth 'Joy', fragmented in five different musical styles, is an ode to joy, that “releases you from the prison of your mind”. And to conclude on a poetical climax with the economical 'Botanique', Joseph delivers enticing lyrics with a low and smooth voice accompanied only by intense piano chords: “Live in sin with me, and dust will be our destiny”, “Rust with me, deny for me”, “Be light with me”.

In other words, this album is an ode to the most beautiful, delicate yet powerful side of life.

This article appeared on AAAmusic.co.uk.