Hejira

“Uncompromisingly visceral, a passionate yet tender sound”
The Guardian

“Bristles with spine-shivering harmonies and sinewy, jazzy melodies...Excellent”
Uncut

London-based band Hejira present their second album Thread Of Gold which illuminates their intelligent, soulful, leftfield-aligned take on pop music and underpins their love of the otherworldly, the mesmerising, and the unpredictable.

The band comprises Sam Beste, Alex Reeve and Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne, alongside a close circle of additional musicians and collaborators. They have received commissions to compose, arrange and perform original works from the London Sinfonia, BBC’s Nick Luscombe, Spitalfields Music, Help Refugees, the V&A and the British Council.

Thread of Gold describes vocalist, bass guitarist and co-songwriter Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne’s changing relationship with her homeland of Ethiopia after the death of her father. She took the band with her on a pilgrimage to Addis Ababa, looking to reaffirm her own ancestral roots and cultural identity, and subsequently on a deeper exploration into the unique, ancient and far-flung lands, peoples and musics of Ethiopia.

On this journey, the band members worked through loss and bereavement, through discovery and new experiences, through a moveable songwriting that took place across many years and many locations. Years of performing together in jazz and big-band ensembles, and alongside such profiles as Amy Winehouse, Nitin Sawhney, Floating Points and Eric Lau has informed an instinctual and mutually inspiring compositional relationship within the band. The album connects Hejira’s many musical anchor points - articulate songwriting, soulful arrangements, a love of the unpredictable, and a global and highly humanist outlook.

Thread of Gold is released on 22nd February 2019
Pre-Order is available at hyperurl.co/ThreadOfGold-Hejira