gratitude Cassie Kinoshi, seed., NikNak, London Contemporary Orchestra

• 1i04:59
• 2ii04:03
• 3interlude i01:41
• 4iii sun through my window03:42
• 5interlude ii02:24
• 6iv04:45
• 7Smoke in the Sun05:37
• Total Runtime27:11

Info for gratitude

In March of 2023 composer, arranger & alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London’s Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece – gratitude – for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO).

Followers of UK Jazz know Kinoshi from her previous work with seed. (including the Mercury Prize-nominated album Driftglass, released by jazz re:freshed in 2019), or as a former member of Kokoroko. But her compositional résumé also extends deeply into orchestral work for concert hall, contemporary dance, film, visual art, and theatre, with high profile collaborators including London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. That depth of experience is on full display on gratitude, with the textural and dynamic flexibility of her large ensemble covering musical ground from groove-focused modal melancholia to anthemic brass and string themes. Striking upon first listen and even richer on repeat visits, gratitude scores the soul of contemporary Black London with philharmonic craftwork in the tradition of legendary jazz arrangers like Mary Lou Williams, Oliver Nelson, and Carla Bley.

Similar to those keystone writer-arrangers, here Kinoshi wields the power of a large ensemble to convey nuanced human emotion. “gratitude was written as a means of guiding my own healing,” says Kinoshi. “My mother told me that she keeps a gratitude book where she writes one thing, no matter how big or small, every day that helps to re-focus her mind on practicing gratitude. The examples that she gave were seeing the flowers that she'd recently planted in her garden bloom and a kaleidoscope of butterflies that she saw flitting about a tree in her garden.”

Inspired by her mother’s focus on natural beauty and the meaningful minutiae of everyday life, Kinoshi was driven to work through her own relationship with mental health and to pour that into composition. “I was spending a lot of time on my own, often at my desk writing continuously,” says Kinoshi. “At 3pm everyday, the winter sun would be positioned opposite my window and shine directly onto my face. The task of writing this piece was one of the most difficult I've endured – because of the headspace that I was in at the time – and this would be the one thing in the middle of the day that would bring me a very deep sense of contentment… my first attempt at consciously practicing gratitude for something that I so often take for granted.”

“At this point in my artistic career, highlighting the often overlooked subject of mental health and what it means to move towards creating healthy, positive and introspective practices in regards to both understanding and regulating one's own mental health is of the utmost importance to me.”

Throughout the writing process Kinoshi had the privilege of knowing that her composition would eventually be interpreted by seed. — an ensemble of players she founded in 2016 and whose collective talents she knows through and through. “The binding concept of seed. has always been to have a creative outlet that allows me to express and highlight subject matter important to me alongside musicians that I deeply respect, admire and enjoy spending time with,” explains Kinoshi. “It is the one environment where I feel extremely comfortable being able to experiment with sound authentically. Over the years, it has evolved in the sense that the more comfortable the band members get with interpreting my music, and the more we develop a creative language together, the more honest the music sounds.” That profound musical and personal trust helped make the ensemble a perfect vehicle for a composition augmented by new collaborators — in this case the LCO and NikNak.

Kinoshi and seed. first met turntablist NikNak at the Marsden Jazz Festival in 2019. After spending some time talking politics and sharing jokes it was clear that a creative relationship was possible. “I find that working with formidable artists that I get on well with on a personal level always leads to my best work, and knew as soon as I met NikNak that I wanted to work with them.”

On the genesis of her collaboration with the LCO, Kinoshi says: “I have always wanted to combine seed. with electronics and orchestral elements, as I have always envisioned the band performing multi-disciplinary works. I have long admired the members of the LCO and their way of successfully melding orchestral arrangements and improvisation with more contemporary artists. I was introduced to them via Lexy Morvaridi during his time at the Southbank Centre. It was through his support, creative insight and trust that we were able to make this project happen.” The beauty and harmony of these communal connections plus the depth and deftness of all the musickers involved truly made Kinoshi's dream of this composition a reality.

Running confidently at 21 minutes and 33 seconds (not including the album’s B Side / final track “Smoke in the Sun,” which was recorded separately at Total Refreshment Centre) and going straight for the heart, gratitude is an evolved, emotionally attuned, creatively ambitious and compositionally exquisite philharmonic expression of post-millennial UK jazz.

Cassie Kinoshi, alto saxophone and composer
NikNak, turntables
Jack Banjo Courtney, trumpet 1
Joseph Oti-Akenteng, trumpet 2
Deji ljishakin, tenor saxophone
Joe Bristow, trombone
Hanna Mbuya, tuba
Maria Chiara Argirò, piano
Shirley Tetteh, guitar
Karl Onibuje, double bass
Rio Kai, double bass
Patrick Gabriel-Boyle,drums
Clare Bennett, flute
Alastair Penman, clarinet and bass clarinet
Ellie Consta, violin 1
Gillon Cameron, violin 2
Jordan Bergmans, viola
James Douglas, cello

Tracks 1-6 recorded live at the Southbank Centre, Purcell Room, London, March 2023. Additional Recording at Livingston Studios, London, November 2023. Live Engineering by Tony Birch. Additional recordings engineered by Dave Vettraino.

Cassie Kinoshi, alto saxophone
Jack Banjo Courtney, trumpet 1
Sheila Maurice-Grey, trumpet 2
Deji ljishakin, tenor saxophone
Joe Bristow, trombone
Hanna Mbuya, tuba
Deschanel Gordon, piano
Shirley Tetteh, guitar
Rio Kai, double bass
Patrick Gabriel-Boyle, drums

Track 7 recorded at Total Refreshment Centre, London, April 2021. Engineered by Kristian Craig Robinson.

All tracks mixed by Dave Vettraino. Mastered by David Allen

Cassie Kinoshi
is a Mercury Prize-nominated (2019) and Ivors Academy Award-winning (2018) Berlin/London-based composer, arranger and alto-saxophonist with a focus on creating multi-disciplinarily and genre-blending performance work in various audio-visual contexts. As a bandleader, she writes for and performs with her ten-piece ensemble seed. which features many top London-based improvising musicians. She is a composition graduate of the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she studied with Andrew Poppy and Stephen Montague.

An in-demand composer for contemporary dance, film, visual-art and theatre, her production credits including the Park Avenue Armory NYC (Euphoria), National Theatre (Top Girls), the Globe Theatre (The Tempest), BalletBoyz (England on Fire and Bradley 4:18) and the Southbank Centre (Drew McConie's The Nutcracker). She has been commissioned by orchestras and ensembles such as London Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, London Contemporary Orchestra, Manchester Camerata and initiatives such as Renaud Capuçon’s Festival Nouveaux Horizons in Aix-en-Provence, France.

With a keen interest in audio-visual, installation and combined-genre ensemble performance, in 2021, Cassie was Artist-in-Resident for London Unwrapped festival at King’s Place. Her residency included the world premiere of Three Suns Suite for Aurora Orchestra featuring members of seed. Synthesis a night curated by Cassie of forward-reaching artists from London and echo an immersive installation created in collaboration with visual artist Anne Verheij with score featuring electronic soundscapes, field recordings and members of Chineke! Orchestra.

Premiered to a sold-out Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre, her 2023 commission gratitude was written for members the London Contemporary Orchestra in combination with seed. and award-winning turntablist NikNak, accompanied by visuals by Birmingham/Belgrade-based artist GURIBOSH.

Cassie is also very passionate about working as an educator and workshop leader with outreach being an integral part of her performance work. In 2020 and 2021, she arranged and conducted a community ensemble for EFG London Jazz Festival’s She is Jazz: Womxn Make Music performance at the Southbank Centre and King’s Place and as part of her 2023 Southbank Centre commission, led a series of workshops and invited students to attend the premiere of gratitude.

NikNak
A woman with a highly impressive array of talents and skills, and a dynamic music creative with experimental albums and tracks/remixes on Come Play With Me, Kynant Records, OTONO, Reel Long Overdub under her belt, NikNak regularly redefines and expands upon her role as a ground-breaking multidisciplinary artist. Her debut album Bashi received acclaim from Resident Advisor, listed as one of their Best Albums in January 2021 as well as airplay on BBC Radio 3, Worldwide FM and Threads Radio. Previously mentored by Shiva Feshareki, Anna Meredith and Supriya Nagaranjan, NikNak became the first Black Turntablist in history to win the illustrious Oram Award in 2020, has been featured in well renowned publications such as Mixmag, Resident Advisor, Yorkshire Evening Post, Electronic Sound Mag, and DJ Mag, and received support from Arts Council, Brighter Sound, Launchpad, Sound UK, Sound and Music, and PRS Foundation.

A member of the Eve's Drop DJ Collective and listed as one of DJ-Mag’s “Ones To Watch in 2022”, NikNak continues to build upon her vast DJ-ing experience having blown audiences away with her eclectic DJ sets at festivals like Wilderness, We Out Here, Leeds International Festival, Bestival and more, as well as running the "Dub Sirens" and "Melanin" events in Leeds. NikNak also is dedicated to expanding her unique Turntablism practice within immersive surround-sound compositions and improvised performances, working tirelessly to develop her sounds to show audiences just how robust and experimental her music can be with her outspoken, passionate, bubbly and comic book-nerd personality.

NikNak has also played with/supported iconic artists/DJs such as Mr Scruff, Madlib, Awesome Tapes From Africa, Akala, Grandmaster Flash, Bradley Zero, Dan Kye, Princess Nokia, Commodo, MJ Cole, Chynna, CocoMarie and more, as well as appearing on the popular Telekom Electronic Beats youtube video alongside Mala, Caspa, Joker, Ila Brugel and Martyn 3024, showcasing her ever-expanding knowledge of early 2000s Dubstep history. Within the realm of radio, NikNak is well-versed as both a presenter and producer with her monthly show "Melanin" on Worldwide FM, showcasing many interpretations of Black music. Previously, she's also cut her teeth on popular stations such as BBC Radio Leeds, BBC Radio 1, Refuge Worldwide with her ambient/experimental show "Dystopia", Subtle FM, Swu.FM, Threads Radio, Narr Radio, Jazz FM and Demon FM.

NikNak has also ventured into the world of podcasting via "The Narrative" podcast, a safe space for Black non-male creatives to express openly about their worlds. NikNak also has been rapidly increasing her experience in theatre music production, composition and sound design, and has worked on productions such as "Dracula", "The Shit", and "The Princess and the Pea" at Leeds Playhouse. And if all that wasn’t enough, as the resident Turntablist/in-house producer of the group, NikNak is also a member of TC And The Groove Family, the bold and energetic UK-based 11-piece collective that thrives on exploring grooves and genres from around the world within their dynamic music.

With such a varied and deep wealth of experience and knowledge, time and time again NikNak regularly proves that she is one of the most productive music creatives working in the industry today, and continues to surprise everyone no matter the setting.

This album contains no booklet.