It's easy to look at the current political climate and grow despondent, if not nihilistic. But ask Ahmed Gallab—the musical polymath otherwise known as Sinkane—about the future, and he sounds downright excited.
"If we don't have hope we're just gonna wallow in our own filth," he explains over the phone from his Brooklyn home. And it's precisely that notion that his new album, Life and Livin' It, hammers home over the course of its nine grooving, horn-laden tracks.
The record marks a sharp turn in tone from his previous releases; 2014's Mean Love—Gallab's fifth album as Sinkane and his first with City Slang—sounds downright lonely. By contrast, Life and Livin' It, is a sprawling and expansive affair. If his last release was a study of id and ego, offering moments of bombast and restraint in equal measure, Life and Livin' Itis Gallab's superego—a record at once rational and freewheeling, dynamic and explosive, yet capable of pulling back the curtain and revealing a vulnerability and intimacy.
Life & Livin' It is also full band affair. Gallab teamed up with band members like drummer JayTram for a more inclusive songwriting process, as well as expanded his touring group with the inclusion of Amanda Khiri (one half of Brooklyn duo Z & A) and Elanna Canlas (a keyboard player in the Easy Star All-Stars), and took the album's nine tracks to the people—performing them at Brooklyn clubs—before recording them at Sonic Ranch Studio in El Paso.
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