Sortilège, French for “spell” or foretelling through chance, opens like a conjuration. Gabe ‘Nandez and Preservation first connected on Aethiopes, where Nandez appeared on the track ‘Sauvage’. That spark became the foundation for this record. Drawing from Malian dust, Argentine shadows, and New York cadence, the album immediately conjures a world both familiar and uncanny, a liminal space where the past and present collide.
The opener, ‘Harmattan’, drifts with the grain of Ali Farka Touré, evoking Saharan winds that carry dust across West Africa. Nandez steps in as the alchemist, weighing words like rare metals, seeking the perfect alloy of myth, politics, and survival. ‘Spire’ rises like its namesake tower, a meditation on sobriety and vigilance, while ‘Shadowstep’ channels MF DOOM’s masked spirit through riddles and rhythm, bending the listener’s attention toward nuance and subtle menace.
On ‘War’, Nandez and labelmate Billy Woods deliver a jagged duet: “the genocide will be televised till it’s normalised.” It’s dread sharpened into clarity. Addiction and human fragility surface on ‘Ball & Chain’ and ‘Spire’, where dependency becomes both weight and weapon. Even sprawling references to Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon, the Dome of the Rock remain grounded in hip hop rigour, a reminder that the record moves between the cosmic and the street with equal precision.
Preservation’s production is the air, walls, and floorboards of this house of cards: dusty, spacious, cinematic, giving each track room to breathe while carrying weight. Every percussion strike, echo, and sample feels unearthed and deliberate, a tactile backdrop for Nandez’s bristling baritone.
By the final track, ‘Lotus Flower’, crucifixion and catharsis converge. Sortilège doesn’t just exist to be heard; it exists to be inhabited. Hip pop as alchemy: mystical, political, deeply human. Gabe ‘Nandez carries the restless, defiant energy that defines Blackwoodz, crafting a record that is part prophecy, part ritual, and wholly unforgettable.
