Kamasi Washington: Heaven & Earth (4LP) [YOUNG TURKS]

Why you'll love it

This 4LP set hides a bonus disc, The Choice, inside a closed part of the packaging that has to be cut open. Heaven & Earth was named Best New Music by Pitchfork and album of the week by The Guardian.

This edition

• 4LP set
• Hidden bonus LP, The Choice

About the album

Kamasi Washington split this one in two. Earth looks outward, at the world as he finds it, and Heaven looks inward, at the world as he imagines it. Coming three years after the triple album The Epic, it's a little shorter and a good deal more focused, though it still runs close to two and a half hours.

He opens with a thundering take on the theme from Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury, sung by Patrice Quinn and Dwight Trible, and the West Coast Get Down are all here: Thundercat, Miles Mosley, Ronald Bruner Jr., Tony Austin, Cameron Graves, Brandon Coleman and Ryan Porter, plus a full choir and string section that turns the big moments positively cinematic. Freddie Hubbard's "Hub-Tones" gets a full-tilt workout, "Street Fighter Mas" struts, and the hidden disc stretches into Carole King and Gerry Goffin's "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and The Five Stairsteps' "Ooh Child."

Metacritic's tally of reviews came to 86, which it calls universal acclaim. And it's the one occasion we'll happily encourage you to take a pair of scissors to a record sleeve.

Also at Kops: more Kamasi Washington on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Young Turks (cat# YT176LP), the 2018 album.