Nathalie Joachim: Ki moun ou ye
Nonesuch / New Amsterdam Records

Combine the arresting voice and flute-playing of Haitian-American singer Nathalie Joachim with the violin of Eighth Blackbird's Yvonne Lam and the drums of So Percussion member Jason Treuting, and the result is a sophomore set that sounds like no other. The Grammy-nominated Joachim sings in English and Haitian Creole on Ki moun ou ye, but anyone unfamiliar with the language will still connect to the album's ten originals when they're delivered with such resonant vocal expression (the accompanying release booklet presents lyrics in both languages). Ki moun ou ye is one of those special cross-cultural projects that instantly renders concepts of borders and boundaries meaningless.

The voices of seven generations emanate from Joachim's voice, an instrument as fresh and dynamic as they come. It hardly surprises that an album whose title means “Who are you?” would concern itself with personal history and identity plus connections to family and Haiti. To that end, Joachim clarifies that the meaning of that question also extends to a broader consideration of identity, specifically “Whose people are you?” Among the many wise decisions she and co-producer Gloria Kaba made during the album's creation was to augment lead singing with sampled vocal textures and thereby build the songs into dense, impassioned outpourings.

As rich as the musical world of Ki moun ou ye is, it's but one part of the musical firmament Joachim inhabits. Wearing her composer hat, she writes for orchestras, chamber and vocal ensembles, and dance and theatre groups and has created works for companies as diverse as the St. Louis Symphony, So Percussion, Roomful of Teeth, and Imani Winds. For many years she was the flutist in Eighth Blackbird, and there's an academic side to Joachim too, as evidenced by this Juilliard School alumnus's Assistant Professor of Composition title at Princeton University.

The title track makes for a perfect entry-point when on a purely sonic level it's so riveting. Through a glitchy, stutter-funk haze, Joachim's roaring voice pairs with a fabulously skittering pulse by Treuting and lustrous bowings by Lam. The song's urgent drive and swirling flutes unite with mournful vocal expressions to produce a setting that's both mesmerizing and rapturous. As beguiling is “Nan kò mwen” for its coupling of Treuting's swinging funk pulse and Joachim's terrific singing. Though she describes the track as angry (attested to by lyrics such as “What I feel inside my body I don't want to feel anymore”), there's no denying ecstatic thrust's in play too. Calling it her “summertime sunshine song,” “Renmen m plis” sees her multi-tracked voice gloriously soaring over a base of crisp drum shuffles. Lam's greatest star turn arrives on “Kanpe anba solèy,” a gorgeous folk lament that couples Joachim's affecting vocal expression with plaintive string voicings. The beauty of her singing distinguishes many a track, from the heartfelt melancholy of “Kouti yo” to the gratitude that permeates “Kenbe m.”

By the time the eighth piece, “Ti nèg,” arrives, the album's template of drums, vocals, flute, strings, and electronics is well-established, yet it's no less striking for having become familiar. Two instrumentals of differing character also materialize, “Fil” a lovely if brief chamber exercise featuring flute and strings and the haunting “Nwa” its dark percussion-and-flute alter ego. Only three performers appear on the recording (not including the singer's grandmother, Ipheta Fortuma, whose voice surfaces in “Kenbe m”), but on her follow-up to 2019's Fanm d'Ayiti Joachim, abetted by her instrumental partners, conjures a dazzling universe of deep feeling and aural splendour.

February 2024