ROMAN NORFLEET AND BE PRESENT ART GROUP - s/t LP

Includes insert and postcard band photo.

We've seen this appear on some record-store-folk end of year Best Of lists.

A spiritual record for the ages. Roman Norfleet And Be Present Art Group play deeply felt sometimes earthy and sometimes cosmic music.

A trio (sax, drums and organ) are augmented by additional percussion, soaring vocals and even a vocal appearance by a toddler. This record will take you where you need to go.

Across six expansive tracks, they build from free-flowing ceremony through meditative groove-based prayer and into full-on gales of improvised music.

“We build our own time,” Norfleet said, a collective act of liberation through sound.

Raised in the Baptist church and trained in the Hindu/Vedic philosophy of Swamini Turiyasangitanada (Alice Coltrane), Portland multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Roman Norfleet travels a lineage of Great Black Music and the world’s spiritualities on his debut for Mississippi Records.

The album emerged out of drum gatherings in Washington DC’s Malcolm X Park - a pocket of freedom built on collective improvisation and shared rhythm.

In Portland, Norfleet gathered a collective of artists including Jacque Hammond and members of Brown Calculus to transmit the spirit of those DC sessions. A formative encounter with Pharoah Sanders furthered the young saxophonist’s journey via the spaceways, through Sun Ra and into the universe of contemporaries like Angel Bat Dawid.