A musical collaboration with writer and activist adrienne maree brown. Lyrics and vocals by amb, music composed and produced by Joshua Gabriel.
"The Sabbatical Suite is a small taste of the many songs adrienne wrote while on a sabbatical in 2020, in a moment that was meant for rest, but ending up happening during a global pandemic and becoming a period of intense change, grief, containment, stillness, and growth. Joshua Gabriel, an old friend of adrienne's, sent her beats to play with and then encouraged her to share the resulting songs with the world. The songs were recorded in cell phone voice memos, mostly in a small studio apartment in Hawaii where she had to keep her voice down for elderly neighbors on either side, a containment that felt appropriate to the pandemic moment, and intriguing to emote within; the creators recommend listening on headphones.
The first song Toyin is an ode to Black Lives Matter activist Oluwatoyin Salau, murdered in June of 2020. Half of all proceeds from this project will go the Blackout Collective, which trains Black organizers in the kinds of action that Toyin so powerfully engaged in. You've Been Lying Again is an interpersonal reflection of the political conditions. A Story For Alexis seeded in a series of bedtime stories adrienne wrote for her sweetheart, then recorded as part of a project celebrating Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Holy Water is an erotic gospel/emo dirge about visceral longing."