Name: Bloodline Maintenance
Brand: Ben Harper

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

CYSI80.2

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Discs

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2022-07-22

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Redeye

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

810098500333

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1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Ben Harper

Genre US

Rock-Pop

Label US

Chrysalis

Vinyl LP pressing. 2022 release. "It was like I was moving forward and venturing into places I had never been before. Taking everything I've learned from every other record and kind of setting fire to it all and starting over," Ben Harper says of his new album Bloodline Maintenance. "And I knew the sounds I was hearing in my head were so unorthodox that I had to do most of it myself." The result is a fearless and immensely soulful work largely inspired by the loss of a longtime friend and the lingering influence of a mercurial and charismatic father. Along with guitar and bass, Harper als o played the drums including an eclectic assortment of percussions. The deliberately open spaces and accented beats influenced in large part by the exploratory rhythms of the hip-hop he has loved since his teens. The result is less a direct influence than the applying of hip-hop's inventiveness to longstanding paradigms of soul, blues and jazz, spinning it all forward into a reconfiguration of a new black Americana. "If this is my Mule Variations, then hallelujah." Harper says, referencing the groundbreaking Tom Waits record. Bloodline Maintenance is both a political and personally revealing work. It is soul music, but never a stylistic tribute to some bygone era. The sound and words are essential and undeniably timely. Harper acknowledges that much of the exploration on the record was fueled by an awareness of time. "It's this notion of mortality and the people we have lost. The way I hoped it would all turn out and the realization that, as beautiful as it all can be, perhaps none of it matters beyond these moments."

Bloodline Maintenance

Music US