Depending on your vantage, Tom Skinner is best known either as the beat wrangler in The Smile or as a volcanic force in Sons of Kemet. He's the sort of drummer who always locates the pivot point between chaos and clarity, and he brings that shifting insight into focus on a solo album, Voices of Bishara, due out on Nov. 4 through a joint agreement between Nonesuch, International Anthem and Brownswood Recordings.
"Bishara," the opening track, affirms a spiritually searching tone on the album, along with a rhythm ideal that favors breath and pulse. Nubya Garcia provides the feverish incantation on tenor saxophone, and Shabaka Hutchings (Skinner's old compatriot in Sons of Kemet) is the murmuring voice of assent on bass clarinet. They're joined by Kareem Dayes on cello and Tom Herbert on bass, creating an astral hallucination that forms at ground level.
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