Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises (Vinyl LP)

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises | Gatefold Vinyl LP - 2025 Luaka Bop Reissue (680899909716)

• Pharoah Sanders's final album, recorded when the saxophonist was 80, a single 46-minute composition in nine movements built around a seven-note harpsichord motif that Floating Points (Sam Shepherd) wrote and Sanders answered with his tenor and his voice.
• The London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sally Herbert and led by concertmaster Carmine Lauri, enters in the middle movements and draws the piece toward a crescendo that resolves back into silence.
• Named Album of the Year by Pitchfork, The Guardian, The Wire and Mojo, Grammy-nominated, and widely regarded as the most significant jazz recording of the decade. Sanders died on September 24, 2022.

Sam Shepherd met Pharoah Sanders in 2015, and the collaboration that became Promises took five years to finish. Shepherd, who records as Floating Points and holds a PhD in neuroscience from UCL, wrote a single continuous composition in nine movements built around a descending seven-note harpsichord motif. The motif opens the record and recurs throughout, sometimes on harpsichord, sometimes on celesta, Fender Rhodes or one of the seven synthesisers Shepherd plays across the album: an Oberheim 4 Voice, an OB-Xa, a Solina String Ensemble, a Therevox, an EMS Synthi, an ARP 2600 and a Buchla 200e. Against this shifting electronic and keyboard backdrop, Sanders plays tenor saxophone and sings. His tone is weathered and unhurried. He enters where the music asks him to, stays as long as the phrase needs, and leaves without announcing his departure. The London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sally Herbert, enters in the middle movements and expands the harmonic field until the climax of Movement 7, then withdraws as the piece settles back toward the simplicity of its opening.

Sanders recorded his parts at Sargent Recorders in Los Angeles. The LSO recorded at Air Lyndhurst Studios in London. Sanders died on September 24, 2022 at the age of 81, eighteen months after the album's release.

This is the 2025 Luaka Bop reissue (680899909716). The original pressing came out on Luaka Bop in March 2021 with a die-cut outer sleeve. This 2025 reissue uses a gatefold sleeve but is otherwise the same pressing: single LP, Chris Bellman lacquer cut.