The Heliocentrics & Melvin Van Peebles - The Last Transmission (Deluxe Edition) (2014)

Melvin Van Peebles, the filmmaker, musician, author behind the landmark movie Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and the trilogy of Brer Soul albums he released in the 70s has teamed with the UK ensemble Heliocentrics to create an interplanetary space/love odyssey told in twelve chapters. The Last Transmission comes nearly ten years after Van Peebles appearance as the third member of Quasimoto on Stones Throw Records 2005 release The Further Adventure of Lord Quas. For the Heliocentrics, The Last Transmission represents their third Now-Again album, following Out There in 2007 and 13 Degrees of Reality in 2013. The Last Transmission is considered by the Heliocentrics as their defining work, the result of more than a decade of playing and recording together. Theyve found a voice as a band, one that meshes with Van Peebles, as he weaves an intergalactic Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In between producer/drummer Malcolm Cattos thunderous syncopation and producer/bassist Jake Fergusons bellowing bass lines, amidst the analog electronics and atmospheric interference naturally accorded by their organic analogue process, Van Peebles voice floats in and out, spectral in its tone, complete in its conviction in the unfathomable sense that lifes eruption in the cosmic expanse made, and in loves ability to transform and transcend death.