RVNG Intl. to release new album from Black Decelerant, aka Contour’s Khari Lucas and Omari Jazz

Black Decelerant, the duo of Khari Lucas aka Contour and Omari Jazz, have announced their debut collaborative release via RVNG Intl.

The pair will release ‘Reflections Vol. 2: Black Decelerant’ on 21st June. The album which represents the second volume RVNG’s ‘Reflections’, a series of contemporary collaborations by the celebrated Brooklyn independent label.

According to a press release, Lucas and Jazz “explore improvisational jazz traditions [on the release] through contemporary tone and texture, fostering sonic meditations on themes of Black being and nonbeing, life and mourning, expansion and limitation, and the individual and collective. The Black Decelerant collaboration, and intention, creates space for listeners to be still, while providing a basis for a movement beyond “the moment.”

With Lucas and Jazz living in South Carolina and Oregon respectively, ‘Black Decelerant’ took shape from improvised instrumentals and sample-based across six months of remote sessions in 2020.

“It felt like a remedy to some of the existential stress we were feeling during the time,” said Lucas, who arrived at the project name with Jazz after reading Aria Dean’s ‘Notes on Blacceleration,’ an article which explores Accelerationism within the context of Black being or non-being as a foundational tenet of capitalism.

“Simultaneously being in the height of lockdown and thinking about encroaching fascism and anti-Blackness, in the US especially,” continued Lucas. “The making of the record felt very meditative and offered a dimension to ground us.”

‘Reflections Vol. 2’ is available to pre-order in vinyl, CV and digital editions.

Watch Neil Nourigat’s video for the release’s first single, ‘two’ – featuring trumpet improvisations from Jawwaad Taylor – below.