wowhd.co.uk

Sortilège is the new album from esteemed producer and DJ Preservation and ascendant

talent Gabe 'Nandez. The two artists first linked on Aethiopes, Preservation's 2022

collaboration with billy woods, where Nandez was featured alongside Boldy James on

one of the album's standout tracks. "Sauvage" became the catalyst for Sortilège, as the

New Orleans-based producer and New York-based rapper gradually began exchanging

ideas-first long distance, then in February 2024, when Nandez flew to New Orleans for

two weeks, ready to work.

"It was smooth, very synergetic," 'Nandez explains. "We listened to mad music-Boot

Camp Clik, Scaramanga, Cuban Linx-and I was asking questions about all types of shit,

trying to soak up game and history, which I did."

The two also bonded over their shared francophone ancestry: Preservation is half French

and 'Nandez is half Malian. These connections made their way into the music as well,

via both aesthetics and sample sources, and that sort of exchange courses through

Sortilège, bridging the generational, geographical, and cultural gaps between the two

artists with a record that feels a world unto itself. Esoteric, yet blunt and uncomplicated

as a fistfight, Sortilège erases the line between urbane and urban. It's a movie in a lucid

dream, A Clockwork Négritude projected against the wall of a construction site. Mixed-use

residential.

Tracing this arc, fellow travelers Armand Hammer, Koncept Jack$on, Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni

Ngoko, and billy woods all make appearances. Oh, and there are drums everywhere: drums

that will rattle a hooptie and drums that whisper threats. Somehow, over the course of 14

tracks, Preservation seems to find his way to every instrument imaginable-yet each beat

has room to breathe. Amidst this breakbeat symphony, 'Nandez's unmistakable baritone

glides purposefully, ever forward, a bristling warship in troubled waters. Every time the

bass thumps, 'Nandez counterpunches. This is a record for heavyweight speakers and

clunky headphones.