by David Wilikofsky
I recently discovered that the roof to my building, which was bursting at the seams during the last COVID peak, is now almost completely empty by the time the sun sets. I’ve taken to heading up with a pair of headphones, peering out on the nocturnal cityscapes below while listening to whatever albums I’m writing about for Undrcurrents; it’s a chance to get some fresh air and be alone with my thoughts. Of all the albums that received this treatment so far, none have felt more enlivened by the setting as Honest Labour, the latest album from Space Afrika.
The early music of Space Afrika, the duo of Joshua Reid and Joshua Inyang, was indebted to the legacy of British electronic music and their hometown of Manchester. As the duo has developed their artistic practice, they’ve moved away from conventional forms into more nebulous sonic outer zones. Last year’s hybtwibt?, recorded and released in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, saw them building dense soundscapes by layering buzzing and droning synths with sounds of heartbreak and protest. Honest Labour represents a continuation and refinement of their musical language, moving even further into their own sonic universe. This time around their focus is back on their hometown, but in the process they capture something universal: the distinct, ineffable energy of the city.
The duo describes what they create not as music but as ‘overlapping moments’, and it’s a phrase that fits perfectly; the album’s fluid sounds mirror the way urban dwellers actually experience the city, myriad lives and personal dramas big and small playing out in its homes and streets. A man asks a woman how you can know if you’re in love with someone. A woman tells us about the walls she has built up after being let down time and time again and the love she still holds for herself. We hear rapping on lead single “B£E”, which you could easily imagine blaring from the speakers of a slowly passing car; elsewhere we hear blurry vocals as if they’re emanating from a window far above. All these sounds mix with omnipresent background ambiance: swells of strings, broken beats, swirling drones, field recordings of actual city sounds. It’s music that reminds me of pre-COVID times, wandering the streets on a Friday night and allowing the buzz of the city to envelop me.
Although the album consists of nineteen discreet tracks, each one flows so seamlessly into the next that it’s hard to discern where one begins and the other ends; there isn’t a particular track that stands out to me, and there’s certainly not an obvious single to rack up streams. It’s music whose power accumulates over time, where each murky vocal or unanswered question builds on the last. It both a tour de force and a love letter, not just to Manchester but to any urban sprawl and the life that teems within it.