Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis

Album Notes & Community Reviews

'Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis', the fourth installment in Matana Roberts' ambitious twelve-part series, is a dense work of avant-garde jazz and spoken word that explores African-American history and generational trauma. Led by Roberts' potent delivery on saxophone, clarinet, and voice, the album utilizes a dynamic ensemble—incorporating oud, fiddle, and vibraphone—to shift between cacophonous free improvisation and arrangements of traditional folk songs and spirituals. The piece centers on a harrowing ancestral narrative, relayed by Roberts' grandmother, of a young girl whose parents are murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, using it to interrogate memory, violence, and survival in the American South.