Hoodoo Telemetry

If you've followed the beats of his half-century career, you'll know Vernon Reid as an artist who paints in every colour. Depending on the era you dive into and the album on your turntable, you'll find the New York polymath pinballing between jazz, metal, punk, funk, electronica and hip-hop, cutting heads with collaborators as eclectic as Mick Jagger and Public Enemy, endlessly shedding his skin yet always speaking his truth. "Hoodoo Telemetry," considers the 66-year-old of this kaleidoscopic opus, "is like a piece of my all-over-the-place mind. It took me a while to start this record because I was thinking about what I wanted to do next, managing my time with all my other projects. I was also in different spaces with these songs: some are new, others are reclamations of material from a long time ago. But suddenly, I found the focus and it was very clear to me: I gotta do this now." Hoodoo Telemetry isn't a linear piece, but a thrillingly tangled tapestry of genres, collaborators and material from different time periods. Its energy and chaos seem to reflect and challenge what Reid considers the "tumultuous" socio-political backdrop it will soundtrack.