He seemingly came out of nowhere, but from his first release it was clear that Alfa Mist was here to stay. Three albums in, his mellow-y and lushly orchestrated view on jazz music never seizes to amaze. We are thrilled to say that he will return to our festival on Saturday 19 November.
Sometimes the story of a vinyl release tells us something about the urgency and prominence of an artist in a specific space and time. Alfa Mist’s debut Antiphon, with an initial release of just 250 copies, was being repressed for months in a row. But somehow no record store, not even the biggest ones in his hometown London, had a single piece on the shelves. Every drop was gone in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
It must have felt like the cosmos talking, as his own journey as a jazz musician started while digging through the crates, looking for samples for his grime and hip hop projects. Jazz grew on him, after which he learned to play the piano completely by himself. He never stopped rapping, now he just does it from behind the piano – something that seems dizzyingly unorthodox to do.
His background in hip hop and his extensive knowledge of music through sampling might explain his unique sound. Alfa Mist’s jazz is intimate and tight, to suddenly become spacious and rich of sound. There’s melancholy similar to Brazilian saudade, head-nodding beats that tie into hip hop and neo soul and his string arrangements transport the mind into a cinematic universe. It’s feeling over perfectionism, any time.
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 19 | 22:45 | GET YOUR TICKETS