''Undercurrent'' is an album by American

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

singer

Matisyahu Matthew Paul Miller (born June 30, 1979), known by his stage name Matisyahu (; ), is an American singer, rapper, beatboxer, and musician. Known for blending spiritual themes with reggae, rock and hip hop beatboxing sounds, Matisyahu's 2005 sin ...

, which was released on May 19, 2017. It is his sixth studio release, and follows 2014's '' Akeda''. ''Undercurrent'' was recorded in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

Background

The album utilizes great amounts of jamming; thus, Matthew Miller considers ''Undercurrent'' to be a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

-like record, since it comes from "the same modus of musical exploration,

improvisation Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...

and conversation." He states that the idea of this album was to emulate the energy of live recordings (through improvisation) that is hard to "pull off" in the studio, and he believes people will feel "its real spirit of freedom" when they listen to it"; similar to how fans tend to prefer live

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...

recordings over their studio albums. Regarding the music, Miller claims he wanted to create a different kind of album than he usually makes. When discussing the making of ''Undercurrent'', he says that instead of writing and recording in the studio, he wanted to start with a live sound. So he gathered the "greatest musicians ecould find" who could play this kind of music. He spent nearly two years assembling this

band Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary * Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania * Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, ...

, during which he would improvise and jam on stage (while being recorded) during tours. These jams would then be developed into "somewhat lose forms" before, lastly, recording the vocals. The songs "Step Out into the Light" and "Back to the Old" were posted as music videos on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

on April 25 and May 10, 2017, respectively; the whole album was released a day early (May 18) on YouTube as well.

Track listing

Personnel

Adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. *

– Primary artist, producer * Stu Brooks – amplifiers, bass, guitar,

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

, Eventide, Moog bass, producer, strings * Aaron Dugan –

Epiphone Epiphone () is an American musical instrument brand that traces its roots to a musical instrument manufacturing business founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in İzmir, Ottoman Empire, and moved to New York City in 1908. After taking over ...

, guitars,

Moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer ( ) is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog's company, R. A. Moog Co., produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer ...

, pedals, producer * Abe Seiferth – Engineer * Masayuki Hirano – Instrumentation, Moog synthesizer, producer * Joe Tomino – Cymbals, Drums, producer, stick * Francesco Botero – Engineer,

mixing engineer A mixing engineer (or simply mix engineer) is responsible for combining ("mixing") different sonic elements of an auditory piece into a complete rendition (also known as "final mix" or "mixdown"), whether in music, film, or any other content of a ...

Joel Hamilton Joel Hamilton (born 1980) is an American Brooklyn-based record producer, audio engineer and musician. Hamilton performs as a musician for the band Book of Knots. He is also a producer and engineer at Studio G in Brooklyn, New York. In the summer ...

– Mixing * Joe LaPorta – Mastering * Michael Jinno – Assistant engineer * Joseph Bayer – Artwork

Charts

The song "Step Out into the Light" peaked at position 48 on Billboard's Mexico Ingles Airplay chart.

References

{{Authority control Matisyahu albums 2017 albums