Beckah Amani - This is how I remember it. (2024) [Hi-Res[

Years of industry accolades and steady artistic development culminate on Beckah Amani’s wowing debut album. Born in Tanzania to Burundian parents before relocating to Australia and thriving in her musical household, she specialises in confiding indie folk heightened by top-shelf production and instrumentation. Amani frames This is how I remember it. as a series of exchanges between two lovers whose relationship has just ended. That opens the floodgates for a wide range of emotions, with the opening “Try for Me” posing a series of frank questions—including “Would you ever die for me?”—and a heartfelt plea of “We don’t have to end” over the delicate R&B shadings of “High on Loving You”. Amani surrounds herself with versatile collaborators who can realise this extended vision of a romantic post-mortem, tapping Australian expat producer M-Phazes on “Free Fall” and enlisting additional work from The Imports on “Superstar”. British producer Jakwob and Australian breakout Alice Ivy help to make “Sober” a gripping centrepiece about being stuck in the same old patterns, with Amani meditating on freedom and bloodshed over fluid drumming from Ezra Collective’s Femi Koleoso. As tumultuous as the subject matter can get, Amani impressively holds her ground. “This is me doing my best,” she declares on “Call Home”, refusing to diminish herself even when she admits to holding on only by a thread.