SWL #14: Amenta Abioto, “Awake”

 
I’m pretty excited about Opening Flower Hymns, Amenta Abioto’s gorgeous full-length debut. The Portland artist is a jack-of-all-trades (e.g. actor, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist) whose energetic live performances and innovative experimentation with minimalistic soul and tribal textures have gained her growing notoriety, and with songs like “Awake” in her repertoire you can be sure she won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Like most of her work, the song begins as what sounds like a vocal exercise and builds over time until the initially isolated musings start to loop back and find one another. The effect is that “Awake” takes you off guard during its unassuming introduction, and just moments after it all comes together with Abioto’s soulful melismatic capstone, she cuts the loop and it ends abruptly. Opening Flower Hymns was released at the end of last month (March) and you can get it on her bandcamp. No word on a physical release just yet, but if the past is any indication you can bet that she’ll be back in Seattle soon and we can bug her about it then.