Composer, saxophonist, bandleader and visual artist Matana Roberts is set to release her new album Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden… on 29 September via Canadian imprint CST. The fifth instalment of her vast project exploring African-American history through ancestry, archive and place, the album weaves together elements of jazz, avant-garde composition, folk and spoken word, as Roberts tells the story of an ancestor, a woman “who died following complications from an illegal abortion”.
At a time when reproductive rights are under attack in the US, Roberts explains how this influenced the music: “I wanted to talk about this issue, but in a way where she gets some sense of liberation, to create a portrait of a woman who is, as the lyrics put it, electric, alive, spirited, fire…
