The grooves that kick off Hourglass are intoxicating and lull me into a head-bobbing repetition that almost made me fall off my barstool. The instruments that fill in between the lines give the song a propulsive, urgent drive toward something climactic: what is it? That’s up to the listener to decide. For me, it was raising my hands in the air, tongue out, and a smile on my face. Alright. I’ve embarrassed myself for too long. Thank you both for taking the time to do this interview. Let’s start with your latest record, Hourglass. I understand it’s a shift back to a pure instrumental project as a means to help folks from the outside, who don’t speak the language, connect with the music emotionally.
What would you say are the most prominent emotions on display on this record? Did you all move as one with the same emotional intent, or was it more of a back-and-forth, with different emotions counterbalancing each other during each performance?
We got together to flesh out these songs as a group about 18 months into the pandemic shutdown once we could all assemble safely. Most of the songs were born as original ideas of one person and then a demo was created and dropped into a folder. We made a list of the most potent ideas with the goal of being able to finish 12 or so of them (a complete concert set with extra songs, and two albums worth of recorded material. In the rehearsals, we hammered out the song forms and wrote/rewrote certain parts like guitar parts or bass lines, added other things like turnarounds, B sections, etc. Once we had workable versions, we played them on the road for a little over a year and then went into the studio to record them. Every song is a back and forth but we’ve been doing it so long that most of the players and co-composers have a pretty clear idea of what might or could work musically with this band so there is not a lot of bickering or tension over ideas.
To finally get to the question of prominent emotions, I think on the album they are: defiance, apprehension, wonder, perhaps a bit of nostalgia, but you might get 11 different answers depending on who you ask. We were keen on making an instrumental album as things seem to be happening so fast that by the time you might write and record any song with topical lyrics, that issue or tragedy has long been flushed out of the news cycle and down the memory hole. I think the hardest thing right now is to figure out what the role of a group like ours is in 2026: we move really slowly and deliberately and this is the era of hot takes.
You’ve been playing for a long time—since the late 1990s. I hear the same fiery passion for afrobeat and rebellious, righteous music akin to the late, great Fela Kuti. I also hear a passion for improvisation and freedom of expression.
How would you say your performance style has developed since those earliest days playing at St. Nick’s Pub in Harlem, NY, at a music and poetry night? If you could go back and tell yourselves anything after that fateful performance, what would you say?
I had never thought about it in those terms. The group was looser in many ways-both people coming in and out. I don’t think the lineup from the first show lasted for many shows after that. It was a lot of trying out the right people and seeing if they were a good fit. It was hard to find guitar players who were content with playing 15 minutes of the same two measure rhythm or tenor guitar part over and over again! The songs were a lot longer, lots more solos—usually each horn player would solo, and we’d have some kind of a drum break.
These days the songs tend to be more concise: there is one horn solo / feature on the recorded version, and one, maybe two horn features when we play the song live, but definitely never everyone blowing on every song.
The band was a lot looser with the arrangements of the songs, especially before we had recorded versions of the songs: we might play a head melody twice one night, then once the next night. There was a point where I was really into calling tunes inside tunes, where we’d break from one song to the next, then back to the original tune. It was interesting, but I think it was a lot more heady than it was musical and that kind of jamming or busting apart the arrangements didn’t become a feature of how we typically perform the songs.
I wouldn’t tell myself anything after the first night: if I had known how difficult and thankless this would be in so many ways I would have probably dissuaded myself from moving forward.
Looking at your band’s Wikipedia, I see quite the timeline of amazing musicians! They (the musicians) have come and gone—some more consistent than others. I imagine it’s like introducing new paints to a painter, or perhaps it’s throwing out the paints and picking up scrap paper and glue! I also appreciate the varied stories and perspectives that shape each record, especially the pre-Williamsburg drama from the mind and art aficionado, Kung Fu Dojo singer, Duke Amayo.
How do you align on the musical direction you want to take for each album with new band members and perspectives in rotation? Are there some primary voices that play more prominent roles in the directions you take for each album?
Each album reflects where we are at the moment, and whose ideas hold the most gravity or urgency at the moment that we can get into the studio and record… Everyone is always generating them, but not everyone is always feeling them so they don’t come to light. Each album has different amounts of different people’s fingerprints on them in the compositions separate from the actual playing on the recording. On this album, we recorded two songs contributed by ex/emeritus members – “Solace” by Raymond Mason and “Hourglass” by Nikhil Yerawadekar, among the other songs that were written by current members. At this point, if the song fits and we’re feeling it, we will give it a chance.
One of my favorite songs you recorded, Sare Kon Kon, was on your self-titled record. The grooves wind and unwind circuitously, building tension as they speed along, but I find the motifs and solos so exciting—they propel the track forward and juxtapose the grooves well, providing meaning to the madness. The track sounds live, with the hollering from either the band or audience, which I appreciate, as it makes the recording sound gritty, and all the more vibrant for it. I can’t find a translation of the lyrics anywhere, though, so I don’t know what the song means!
I understand this track is one of many that you’ve recorded, but do you recall the creative context behind Sare Kon Kon?
The idea of the song is about life moving faster and faster, the people in charge having less and less of an idea about where we’re headed as we plunge further into an uncertain future. The song is over a decade old but feels more relevant with each week. This had a lot of hands in it as far as brainstorming about ideas for the song: the instrumental part existed well before the vocals got fleshed out.
You have shows coming up in CA. If I was on the West Coast, I’d certainly purchase a ticket!
With Hourglass in the rearview mirror, what’s next for Antibalas? Any specific goals, aspirations, or creative directions that you’d like to take the band?
We had another round of writing sessions in January 2026 in Los Angeles to have new material to play out and record. Even though we have a new album out, the material feels old to us as we have been playing it out for 2-3 years now. We have seven more songs from these sessions that we’ll be releasing in some form as singles or another entire record. Once we have the new repertoire seasoned, we will take it into the studio to record.
The music industry, particularly the touring world, is in an economic free fall, and that’s particularly challenging for large, non-commercial bands like us, so every time we travel somewhere, take the stage, and are able to play for a theater or festival full of people, it is a small miracle.