Featherload - A Hue of Meaning (Self Release) [Soul]
- The Slow Music Movement
- 4 minutes ago
- 2 min read
*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's January 15th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***
Born Gavin Grant, Featherload was born in London, raised in LA and now lives in sunny Oakland where he’s been messing around with music for the last thirty years. Unless he’s got some beat producing aliases that I don’t know about, it appears he’s been taking his sweet time honing his chops before finally releasing his debut album, but it’s been worth the wait.
Catalysts come in many shapes and forms but few are as unfortunate as Grant’s, which he remarkably describes as a “period of transition”. In the course of a few weeks he lost his father, grandmother and split up with a significant partner, but somehow managed to turn it into a period of growth and learning. It also reshaped how he made music - encouraging him to ditch the sequencer’s rigidity for a more fluid and expressive live flow. You could probably write a psychology thesis on all that.
The result is a nu-spiritual jazz delight, that radiates optimism, hope and positive vibrations, shedding a warm light around any living space fortunate enough to stream it. The vibes are Alice Coltrane at her most zen; the beats left on dusty hard drives, leaving a glowing ambient jazz bed for Grant’s deeply soulful jazz musings. It sounds like he’s most at home on the piano and keyboards, and his playing has been shaped by his beat making history, preferring cosmic refrains and astral motifs rather than long passages and showmanship. This ambient jazz sensibility is underpinned by pillowy basslines that offer just enough weight to anchor the drifting compositions, lest they float up towards the light, which is where you’ll probably be hovering after tuning in.
Playlist Companion
Find Featherload in the Slow Soul Playlist.