'I Seduce' is released today!
‘I Seduce’ is the latest genre-blurring Afrofuturist sonic vision from Nwando, released today with Accidental Records.
In her radically unclassifiable style, the left-field polymath creates a dizzying convergence of experimental electronic music, call-and-response chants, Afro-Cuban drums and layers of dance-inducing, frenetic polyrhythms – spinning speculative fiction with the ritual cultures of the Black Atlantic, refracted through her signature mind-bending sound.
Referencing her long-term research and interest in Black Atlantic ritual cultures, Nwando built the single around the Petwo rhythm from Haitian Vodou, and then reinterpreted the rhythm through a series of contemporary processes – first recording the Haitian rhythm played by Grammy-winning Cuban drummer Gerardo De Armas Sarria, then imaginatively sampling, processing and layering the track in collaboration with producer Hugh Jones.
‘I Seduce’ grew from her frustration and anger over the digital manosphere’s toxic objectification and demonisation of women as sexual temptresses. In opposition, she writes a raw, ecstatic anthem celebrating women’s sensuality as a liberating and poetic force, directly inspired by poet, writer and activist Audre Lorde’s iconic essay ‘Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power’.
Inspired by the writings of poet, writer and activist Audre Lorde, the single dives into the profound sensuality deep within all women and ecstatically declares it as a liberating, poetic force to be embraced and reckoned with.
Having previously released experimental pop and electronic music under Lady Vendredi (her blaxploitation pop alter-ego), Nwando carves out a bold new Afrofuturist exploration in her first release under her own name. ‘I Seduce’ is taken from her upcoming album The Swan, a work of sonic fiction into the imagined world of a matriarchal community, to be released on Matthew Herbert’s Accidental Records later this year.
Co-produced: Nwando Ebizie & Hugh Jones
Lyrics: Nwando Ebizie.
Voice: Nwando Ebizie
Trombone: Rosie Turton
Drums: Gerardo De Armas Sarria & Randy Lester