Cameron Knowler – “Kuyina”

The third single from Cameron Knowler’s visionary Places of Consequence premiered today on Deepest Currents and because Places is teed up to be one of our albums of the year, we’re sharing it here too.

Knowler is a highly skilled technical player, academic and focused, but emotion shines through on his arrangement of this song from Congolese accordionist Camille Feruzi and late, legendary fiddler Jon Bekoff. His “Kuyina” is a tribute to his late mother, and like the rest of Places of Consequence, there’s a duality at play in Cameron’s music. There’s the sharpness of discipline, the seriousness of a perpetual student and theorist, but also something quite evocative, most evidently on this track. A dream-like haze that lingers throughout Places of Consequence, a transportive tropicalia that makes this album an understated yet splendid soundtrack for either Knowler’s own childhood desert horizon, to mountain sides, poolside pastures, and even bustling urbanscapes.

Pre-order Places of Consequence on Bandcamp.