Brittany Davis – Black Thunder (Vinyl LP) PRE-ORDER

Brittany was sitting there in the studio, and "I don't know, I just felt this charge. I had a 48-hour session-a burst of creativity and improvisation. It was intense, mystical, and magical. I was there, and it was amazing. I thought, "Just do whatever," so I just started playing. It was with D'Vonne, and we just had some amazing chemistry sonically. I was in the piano room, and it didn't even faze me what he was doing-it was changing my direction. I was just having fun, but he was doing something that made it real.
That's when Josh said, "We need to bring Evan in on the second day." We were just improvising and making things up, and it happened so quickly. All our souls seemed to merge as one. Those two brought all the jazz to the record-it was a celebration of life, jazz, and also elements that weren't strictly jazz, but Afro-centric and Black-centric vibes. It made me cry then, and it still makes me cry now.
When we did "Sarah's Song," it hit me deeply, thinking about how she was used as a breeding slave and forced to have so many children. The background sequences you hear throughout the songs came from the layers we were working on for "Sarah's Song." I had chains and padlocks, and I was moving them like shackles on our feet. It felt like "Yesterday"-I could hear my ancestors weeping from the ground. My body was weeping, too. Every time I think about it, I hear so many voices coming through. She had 24 children, and all of that history felt like it was alive in the music.
"Good Lord and mighty," I was singing it, but I wasn't fully singing it-it felt like someone else was singing it through me. "Black Thunder" felt like I couldn't breathe without another voice, another story coming through. I did my best to honor them all, though some of it came out a little sideways-that's just part of the journey.
And then, we did our version of "Present Tense" on the third day.
I don't know, but it still feels so real. All I know is that I hope it resonates with others. I hope they don't need to understand why-it just touches them. I don't know why it does, but I hope it does.

Tracklisting
Disc 1
Side 1
1. Ancestors I
2. All You Get
3. Ancestors II
4. Amid the Blackout of the Night
5. Ancestors III
Side 2
1. Black Thunder
2. Ancestors IV
3. Change Me
Side 3
1. Ancestors V
2. Girl (Don't You Know?)
3. Girl (Now We're the Same)
4. Ancestors VI
5. Mirrors
Side 4
1. Ancestors VII
2. Sarah's Song
3. Sun and Moon
4. Ancestors VIII