About

The Chicago drummer and producer transforms Gil-Scott Heron's final album into a masterpiece of dirty blues, spiritual jazz, and deep yearning. 

Early on, Scott-Heron wrote songs about alcoholism (“The Bottle”) and drugs (“Home Is Where the Hatred Is”), but “The Crutch,” which McCraven backs with a filthy electrified blues vamp, feels especially autobiographical. The song is about heroin (“His eyes half-closed revealed his world of nod/A world of lonely men and no love, no god”) but as the harrowing New Yorker profile made clear, by the time Scott-Heron recorded it, he was addicted to crack cocaine. His words and songs showed compassion for addicts and framed chemicals as a way to cope with pain and loneliness. They also turned the concept of “home” found elsewhere on the album inside-out—sometimes, a place of salvation becomes one of torment. The ability to live with such contradictions and give them life with his words is part of what made Scott-Heron’s work special, and McCraven’s music inhabits that complicated space and keeps its sharp edges intact. It’s odd to draw lessons about survival from someone in trouble who is facing the end, but that’s another paradox the album negotiates. McCraven helps us feel it: For a little longer, anyway, Gil Scott-Heron was still here, and he was holding on. - Pitchfork