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Night by Sara Serpa

From the album

Album Title: Intimate Strangers
Label: Biophilia Records
Released: 2021

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About the Album

“Night" is a track from Intimate Strangers the powerful and timely recording by vocalist-composer Sara Serpa in collaboration with Nigerian author Emmanuel Iduma (December 3, 2021, Biophilia Records). The album creates vivid soundscapes for stories from Iduma's book "A Stranger's Pose," and offers musical insight into the journeys and experiences of fellow travelers and migrants. Through Iduma’s insightful text and Serpa’s transcendent music, the lens widens to explore the struggles and emotions experienced by anyone who’s left their roots behind to seek the uncertain promise of a distant horizon. Joining Serpa and Iduma on the album are vocalists Aubrey Johnson and Sofia Rei, pianist Matt Mitchell, and synth player Qasim Naqvi. The album also continues a narrative that Serpa began with her 2020 release Recognition: Music For a Silent Film, which grappled with the legacy of Portuguese colonialism in Africa via her own family’s history. Intimate Strangers is, in a way, the mirror image of that project, gazing back at colonial powers from the vantage point of Africa itself. “There were a lot of stories in Emmanuel’s book that really resonated with me,” Serpa explains. “While Recognition dealt with my country's past relationships with Africa, I felt like his book presents a much-needed perspective of what borders actually mean. Through his travels and encounters with so many people just trying to cross into Europe, Emmanuel raises all these questions about traveling, migrating and leaving your home behind.” Iduma writes in the liner notes that, “My collaborative performance with Sara brought me closer to understanding how words worked in a pre-literate time, when writing was yet to be invented – when stories were passed from mouth to mouth, from memory to memory… Sara’s composition distills A Stranger’s Pose to its essential groove and vital ballad.”

Personnel

Date featured

January 4, 2022

This song appears by permission of the contributing artist and/or record company. It is for personal use only; no other rights are granted or implied.