Circuit City

Camae Ayewa's combination of politically charged spoken word and experimental noise made under the Moor Mother alias took on a new dimension when she translated it for the stage in 2019 with her first theatrical presentation, Circuit City. The show dissected issues of racist power structures connected to housing insecurity, corporate corruption, and intergenerational trauma. The accompanying album of the same name captured the musical component, Ayewa's impassioned poetry riding atop a din of futuristic free jazz that matches the pain and chaos of the show's themes. Split into four acts, Circuit City starts explosively and stays at high intensity for most of its duration. Lyrics fly in haphazard patterns, returning to topics of mass evictions, stress and trauma handed down from generation to generation, and calls for awareness of racist ideologies and dehumanizing practices. Squalls of excellent free playing by saxophonist Keir Neuringer, bassist Luke Stewart, drummer Tcheser Holmes, and trumpeter Aquiles Navarro are augmented by understated electronics from Steve Montenegro, adding a computeristic touch to the blasts of organic jazz instruments. The visceral fury that Ayewa and her band maintain throughout Circuit City is awe striking in both its control and intensity. Work based in frustration and anger could easily devolve into thoughtless, expressionless freak-outs, but Ayewa and the host of musicians play off each other even in the album's most overwhelming moments. The high level of communication is highlighted during a brief moment of respite in "Act Three - Time of No Time," which begins with soft crooning from vocalist Elon Battle over a backdrop of momentarily mellow cosmic jazz wandering. The bandmembers approach this comparatively lighter passage with all the complexity and dynamism they bring to the more furious moments of the album. Unflinching and raw in both its sociopolitical content and musical counterpart, Circuit City is bluntly powerful. Historically, some of the most inspired moments of free jazz were righteous responses to various forms of oppression faced by black communities, and Circuit City cements Moor Mother's voice in that lineage. ~ Fred Thomas