The virtuosic talisman Vernon Reid has officially released his new solo album, ‘Hoodoo Telemetry’, which is out now via Artone and The Players Club Records. This album is a colossal undertaking, marking the New York polymath’s first full length solo project in over two decades, and it arrives following the release of the revealing new song, “Beautiful Bastard.” For those who have followed the beats of his half century career, Reid is known as a fearless artist who paints in every musical color, pinballing between jazz, metal, punk, funk, electronica, and hip hop, cutting heads with collaborators as eclectic as Mick Jagger and Public Enemy. Globally celebrated as a giant of the electric guitar, his Grammy Award winning records with alt rock trailblazers Living Colour still sound as fresh and fierce today as they did when “Cult Of Personality” hijacked the Billboard chart in the late ’80s.
Reid himself views this kaleidoscopic 14 track opus as “like a piece of my all over the place mind,” noting that the songs include both new ideas and reclamations of older material, such as “Beautiful Bastard,” which he originally considered for a Yohimbe Brothers album. Speaking about the new single, Vernon says, “The word ‘bastard’ is attributed to men, but I wanted there to be an ambiguity: is this about a woman, is it about a man? And I firmly believe it could be about a woman, absolutely. I kind of wrote this song as an homage to doomed romance. It’s not about gender – it’s about when you know it’s doomed from the first kiss. And anyone who’s lived a full life will know of what I speak!” ‘Hoodoo Telemetry’ is a thrillingly tangled tapestry of genres and material that perfectly reflects Reid’s fearless musicality and his desire to question where we are headed next in these unprecedented times.
‘Hoodoo Telemetry’ Track Listing
- Door Of No Return
- Freedom Jazz Dance
- Good Afternoon Everyone
- The Haunting
- Bronx Paradox
- Or Knot
- Dying To Live
- Politician
- Black Fathom Five
- Beautiful Bastard
- Meditation On The Last Times I Saw Arthur Rhames
- My Little Zulu Babe
- In Effigy
- Brave New World