Take Off from Mercy: Vinyl LP

Label: Mexican Summer
Release Date: 1st November

Avant-garde modern soul with a debt to the traditions of Black music with elements of Tropicalia, blues, hip hop and rock. Contour's 'Take Off From Mercy' is like a beautiful fever dream, like few records we've heard this year.

For those who dig: Arthur Russell, Sampha, Moses Sumney...

Charleston, SC-based artist Contour announces his new album and debut for Mexican Summer, ‘Take Off from Mercy’.

Working with the likes of Saul Williams, Mndsgn and co-producer Omari Jazz, ‘Take Off from Mercy’ documents a journey through past and present, night and day, denial and serene acceptance. Contour (real name Khari Lucas) envisions ‘Take Off from Mercy’ as an epic within the pitch dark of night leading to a cloudy resolution.

Our narrator is a prodigal son who must wander through the wiles of excess to approach grace; his journey mirroring that of the protagonist in Toni Morrison’s epochal third novel, ‘Song of Solomon’. To deepen these themes, Lucas is revealing the album in three portions - ‘Night’, ‘Evening’ and ‘Morning’. This phrasing reflects the narrative arc of the album while providing a broader sonic context to the singles. The cinematic scope of this voyage comes to the fore in the accompanying three-part short film directed by Lucas and T.V (Tshay, Vernon Jordan III).

‘Night’ drops us off in the dead of night. In the world of this album, a night can steer towards bliss or paranoia. ‘Theresa’’s loping breakbeat, soaring atmospherics and dream logic lyrics gesture towards the sublime, yet even here, there's a foreboding edge. “I’m dreaming of the last time I saw you dancing,” Lucas intones. “Silver linings each time, they hang me.” The subtle swells and countermelodies give ‘Theresa’ its floating, breathing quality. ‘Gin Rummy’, meanwhile, is more foreboding, a gambler's lament that sees our protagonist weaving a cautionary tale. Our hero “searches for heaven,” finds it, then lets it slip through his hands like sand.

Contour’s body of work is evidence of a restless curiosity that culminates on ‘Take Off from Mercy’. Starting off as a beatmaker, Lucas’s vision has broadened over releases like ‘Onwards!’, ‘Love Suite’, and ‘Weight’, spanning from sample-driven soul to covers of Strawberry Switchblade. On ‘Take Off from Mercy’, Lucas eschews samples in favour of guitar-driven songwriting, a move that immediately places him in a metaphysical conversation with a long line of Southern songwriters. “It immediately got me thinking about the itinerant Southern bluesman,” Lucas says. “The guitar as your only companion while traveling, the instrument as a tool to document your own story and carry on generational tales and traditions.”

When speaking about the blues, Lucas cites a line from New York emcee and producer E L U C I D on the provenance of the art form: “There'd be no blues if I was blameless.” Yet in the world of ‘Take Off from Mercy’, the blues are inescapable and we are bound by history, even if we’re under no obligation to repeat it. In the process of writing and recording ‘Take Off from Mercy’, Lucas toured constantly and began to understand underlying themes within his lineage. He discovered his father tried his hand as a musician before a period of wandering. His mother painted a mural that still rests in the Atlanta subway system. And Lucas’s ancestors crisscrossed from south and north and back again during The Great Migration. Our protagonist is still in motion, seeking an answer on some unknown horizon.