What was intended to be a one-song collaboration for producer
Gabriel Cyr's
Teleseen project bloomed into Eyes Rest Their Feet, a fluid synthesis of transcontinental sounds centering the meditative lyrics and comforting voice of Khusi Seremane (who died months before it was released).
Cyr and Seremane's musical bond was forged through MySpace over a decade before the album reached the public. Their work together entailed remote communication, 2016 sessions in Seremane's native Cape Town, South Africa, and
Cyr's later refinement of the results in New York. Back in the States,
Cyr sought and received input from musicians, most significantly brass and horn players who are rarely focal, adding punctuation and shading, attuned to the producer's inclination for mixing African and Latin sounds spanning generations. Eyes Rest Their Feet consequently melds, with a moderately dubwise production approach, oft-related styles such as mbaqanga-derived bubblegum, kwaito, reggae, sophisti-pop, and downtempo electronica. In addition to Seremane's voice, which exudes wisdom, empathy, and patience, the material is connected by warm low end, whether streaming or burbling through lapping downtempo house, romantic fusions of Jamaican lovers rock and South African bubblegum (two forms with roots in American soul), or art-pop recalling early-'80s
Sly & Robbie sessions at Compass Point. The purest song of all, the breezy and amorous "Throw It All Away," could actually pass for something originally recorded by
the Style Council, "internationalists" themselves. ~ Andy Kellman