Since their self-titled debut album 7 years ago, Ibeyi’s stunning parallel harmonies and integral minimalist Latin percussion has shared a message of power and possibility across airwaves around the globe, cutting through a Western capitalist framework that emphasizes self over society and success over soul. Ibeyi’s artistic expression of visuals and sound broke through the cultural zeitgeist to become one of the most original and recognizable sounds of our time. An ever evolving duo, they are unafraid to be in their multitudes, at once daughters, sisters, icons, philosophers, composers, singers, fashion gods, and prophets. It is no surprise then that Spell 31 speaks to us as a prophecy, one we are on the cusp of realizing if only we dared to embrace the magic and step into the supernatural that Ibeyi so easily inhabits.
Their former albums were portals. Ibeyi worked through grief, dismay, family and love with gothic gospel frequencies; it was a confrontation with the personal. Ash, their second album, grappled with the realities of race and gender, it examined the human condition, weaving West African and Yoruban tradition into its message. It grappled with the political. Spell 31 embraces the whole. It is the other side of the portal, an anchor when we feel our most aimless and adrift.
