What's actually on "Quiet Storm"?
Space Afrika, the Manchester and Berlin duo of Joshua Tarelle Reid and Joshua Inyang, released their fourth studio album, "Quiet Storm," on 25 September through Dais Records. It's their second record for the label and the first new Space Afrika music since 2021's "Honest Labour": 13 tracks built from industrial textures, operatic swells, trip-hop groove and modern-classical arrangement. Bandcamp Daily's September ambient roundup picked it as a standout, describing a record that wrestles with "maintaining integrity in the face of status-chasing, capitalism, and diaspora," a sound that plays urban decay against sleekness.
"There is a lot of beauty in the places that we come from. A lot of places are overlooked and forgotten about, but it's important to remember them and to honour them and to give them space.", Joshua Inyang
Why name the pressure instead of dodging it?
Most ambient records let mood do the talking and leave the industry stuff unsaid. Space Afrika don't. Reid told Huck Magazine the record works as "a sort of cathartic break" from watching the places that shaped them change and price people out, while Inyang described the album's vocal material as carrying "the Black voice" in "very personal experiences, some of it quite raw and intimate." Speaking to Clash the same week, Inyang put the stance more plainly: "We've stayed true to ourselves. It's music from the heart." Reid called the record's mix of international collaborators and "British eccentricity" a deliberate choice, made after the pair "took time away to revisit and rethink" rather than rush a follow-up to cash in on "Honest Labour"'s acclaim.
Who else is on the record, and where did the name come from?
The cover and title both come from outside music: conceptual artist Glenn Ligon handed over his 2009 piece "Figure #30" for the artwork and suggested "Quiet Storm" itself, the name of the smooth, late-night Black radio format of the 1970s built around songs of life and love. The guest list runs wide: pianist Kelly Moran, Klein, Tony Njoku, Vanessa Bedoret, Axelle Fanyo, Alto Aria, Kiala Ogawa and rapper RXKNephew all appear, alongside New York's Deuén, who fronts lead single "If This Is Hell," a one-take stream-of-consciousness piece released in June with a video directed by Pablo Dunkerly.
