Staff Reviews

BLK JKS - After Robots

Review by Gideon Brody

When it's at its best, After Roberts harbours a brave sense of adventurism, a fearless experimentalism. And yes, it can sound like a million other things. But more often that not, it's just the glorious sound of nothing else.»

User reviews

• 6/10 by Valooo

Buy now from:

limited digipack version. the debut full length by blk jks on secretly canadian. by entangling the music they love - township blues, fringe jazz and renegade dub - into the dna of prog, blk jks have provocatively pulled afro-futurism into a new century. 'after robots' has all the ingredients of a party record - young, joyous musicians; surging, afro-drumming; aggressive horn blasts (supplied by the cultishly famous hypnotic brass ensemble) - but this is not party music. it's at times disorienting and overwhelming, but it always maintaining a cool, alluring mystique. it's in mcata's patient, complex and enviable jazz chord vamping. it's in makananise's from-the-pocket-to-the-stars bass approaches. it's in buthelezi's blues-inflected phrasing and searing guitar leads. it's in ramoba's super-polyrhythmic, flailing beats. in january 2009, blk jks set foot on us soil for just the second time, holing up with brandon curtis (secret machines) in the quaint, spirited town of bloomington, indiana, to record the music that would become after robots, their first proper album. ten-hour days turned into fourteen as the band relentlessly exorcised their collective ideas and ideals about music. the process was an overwhelming sensory experience in its own right. to discuss certain musical passages for which there is no accurate english befit to describe, blk jks seamlessly shifted from accented english to their differing tribal languages. then - giving up on words altogether - they'd dive back into a fine-tuned performance of a song. it is the band's tendency to work it out on the spot that is most impressive about their approach to recording and structure. 'after robots' triumphs on its own strange set of genre-ending rules, and blk jks are undeniably a band of our times, embodying the duality of our violent and hopeful new world, these days of mystery and wonder.