Sonic Liberation Front - Justice: The Vocal Works of Oliver Lake (2022)

“The Justice Project has been an exciting journey. First of all, I rarely compose for voices, so I immediately accepted this recording project which was proposed by Kevin Diehl, leader of Sonic Liberation Front. The instrumentation is unique: violin, flute, tenor sax, acoustic bass, drums and 4 voices: soprano, alto, tenor & baritone. My compositions include two of my poems and several moods and colors. I hope you are as inspired by our sound excursions as I am.”
-- Oliver Lake, Spring 2022

“Toward the end of 2019, I was fortunate to have commissioned Oliver Lake to compose and arrange an album’s worth of music. The idea was to feature Oliver Lake’s compositions using the current instrumentation of Sonic Liberation Front (violin, flute, tenor sax, bass, and drums), along with a vocal quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone). If one thinks of Oliver’s work with the World Saxophone Quartet, or the Flux String Quartet, the idea is a natural one.

Together, we deliberated on possible directions an Oliver Lake vocal project could take, and during the pandemic year of 2020 and into 2021 Mr. Lake composed new works, arranged some existing works to produce a stunning set of music.

The recording took place over 3 days at producer Aaron Levinson’s Range Recording studio. The selections vary: voices with quintet, a capella with poetry, voices with quintet and poetry, conduction. The work varies greatly in mood and timbre.

The Justice Project introduces The Sonic Liberation Singers. We enlisted 3 amazing vocalists, undergraduate students at the University of the Arts (UArts), Philadelphia. This, with the assistance Micah Jones Dean of UArts School of Music. The fourth vocalist attended UArts 1971 - 1976 (then the Philadelphia Music Academy).

We, the members of Sonic Liberation Front, are honored, thrilled to provide the canvas for these collected vocal works of Oliver Lake. And I am thrilled and honored to count these musicians as my cohorts.

The compositions, the poetry and performances are cries for love, justice, empathy, and progress, for a world in need of the same.

Oliver Lake will be honored at the 2022 Vision Festival, LES NY. The Justice Project works will performed there on closing day Sunday June 26, 2022

There are four Justice Project videos: One studio interview documentary, and (3) studio music videos - Ain’t Nothin’ Real BUT Love; Clouds (Links are below); Justice (in production).

-- Kev Obatala (Kevin Diehl)