by Philip Moss

As the bite of winter starts to nip at autumn’s neck, it is in this transition – at dusk – that our eyes are drawn skywards as it becomes a silver screen: and for just a few moments, peach hues smear the chilled blue palette before the act of night is upon us leaving the stage to a wash of stars. It’s in these moments of change where Karima Walker’s Reconstellated sits; music that only makes sense as light fades & a blurry darkness begins to envelop.

Where Walker’s 2017 debut full length, Hands in Our Names, was born in the sands of the New Mexico desert – and mined grainy acoustic guitars from the folk traditions as a recurring theme – Walker is in the Arizona deserts this time looking up. And it is in the droning, abstract instrumentals, which were interspersed throughout her debut, that Walker fully focuses in on here – as she reaches out to pluck Reconstellated’s eerie, looping soundscape.

The direction of a lead single is often a marker as to where the songwriter will head on a record as a whole. But the ambiguity of of Reconstellated keeps Walker’s path a mystery. ‘I know where I am, but I can’t tell where I started,’ Walker sings no longer able to look back. Now fully surrounded by black, she keeps her torch in her pocket. The next steps will be unveiled in good time.

Karima Walker’s second album, Waking the Dreaming Body, is out on 26th February through Keeled Scales and Orindal Records.

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