Flea has announced the details of his debut solo album and shared another new track, "Traffic Lights," featuring vocals from Thom Yorke.
I'm not a jazz expert, more so an enthusiast, but one thing I've learned while exploring the genre is that often times the people playing on a song or record are just as vital and important as the main artist who is attributed to the song. I can't imagine anyone reading this isn't already familiar with Flea or Thom Yorke. It feels almost impossible to have a music fan over the course of the past thirty or forty years and not know they main acts. However, as exciting as it is for the two former band members (you may know Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead, but do you remember Atoms for Peace?) to join forces once again, the other players on the song are just as thrilling. Before he rose to fame as the naked bass player in the Chili Peppers, Flea was actually a classically trained jazz trumpeter and considered making an instrumental solo album back in the early '90s while he was filming Gus Van Sant's epic My Own Private Idaho. Now, over thirty years later, Flea is ready to drop that album and he's enlisted some of the best musicians in the current jazz scene to bring it to life. Along with another former Atoms for Peace album, guitarist Jeff Parker (who has an esteemed solo career of his own in addition to his time in the jazzy post-rock group Tortoise), saxophonist Josh Johnson and bassist Anna Butterss (both of the acclaimed group SML) will play on this album as well and you can hear them all come together on the new song "Traffic Lights." Flea is probably considered the world's premier bass player and Yorke's vocal work has also been praised for decades, but it's the underlying melodies and rhythms being brought to life that make this all click. This really is something more than the sum of its parts.
Honora is out March 27.
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