Bass thuds, electrical pulses and urgent clattering rhythms set the scene, whilst layered vocals utter questions about belonging, and Caribbean birds tweet away in the background. This is the brilliant “Consciousness” – a powerful, darkly uneasy new piece of experimental bass music from Brighton’s rising star I Am Fya.
Consciousness is the first single from the new AV album ‘Homeland‘ – a concept album and performance piece that centres around identity, culture and belonging. Arts Council England supported I Am Fya uses her own familial experiences as the inspiration for a raw and honest expression of being a first generation child of immigrants as she examines her connection to her ancestral motherland and second home. Homeland is packed full of samples drawn from a vast collection of recordings from years of visits to family in Barbados: beeps and bustle of hospital waiting rooms, crickets and the rattle of farm machinery are interspersed with the voice of a grandmother giving advice or a mother singing her favourite country song. All this is woven through low-end textures, driving rhythms and reverb-drenched vocal harmonies, referencing sound-system culture along the way.
