Five Prayers by Joy Guidry

Joy Guidry’s new album, 5 Prayers, is an intuitive convergence of sound, spirit, and radical self-expression. As a deeply respected artist in the experimental and avant-garde music spaces, Guidry continues to push sonic boundaries while remaining deeply connected to Black sonic traditions. Moving away from free-jazz, 5 Prayers moves towards an ambient space.
This album is informed by a deep introspective. The resulting work is a manifestation of self-exploration and liberation, resonating with audiences seeking authenticity, vulnerability, and transcendence in music.

From Kehinde Alonge:
What is the sound of prayer? Is it an echo chamber of reverberating lack? Or might it be a melodic chant summoning the intercession of a deeper self rummaged out of the deadness of today's sorrow? Who hears its tapestry of ambient appeals, and to what end might its sound change the circumstance of the bearer of its weight? Joy Guidry's third full-length album, Five Prayers, wades into the aural textures of these questions with five songs, whose titles and varying meditative sonic terrains fill one's ears with the calm yet firm breath of the bassoon's prayer. Held in the voluminous aliveness of her breath, whose sounds range from the patient and glistening dance between harp plucks and breath on songs like "Hold and Be Held" to the euphoric uptempo bass knocks in" Myles" to the interplanetary exploration of breath latent with synth-electric piano strides on "I Know You're Always With Me," the listener of these prayers can find the will to become a prayer itself—transient yet resolved by the strength of its insistence to demand the refuge of what could always be.

if a prayerful insistence
could move matter
& space
transit
tremors back into
broken black
bodies
under the rubble of
today and yesterday’s weight
If prayer could
make the underground
sing
its loophole
of recurring retreat
which is always freedom
if prayer could make a father say
I love you
to his graveyard of regrets
& unoriginal neglect
if prayer could ornament
corpses planted
by earthlings’ discomfort
—it’s atmosphere’s
murmuring wind of gaze
if prayer could be
anything
let it be me
let it be me loved under the weight
of the atom that never was
——it’s safest there



From Joy Guidry:
Five prayers come from a place of my body that I haven't explored in a few years in my music. When writing this album, I constantly heard the earth rumbling between my feet and passing through my nervous system. I wanted to paint a world with many harmonies, infinite peace, serenity, and honesty. This project came at a very tumultuous time in my life. While navigating one of the most challenging mental health episodes in my adult years, I began to pray in new ways. These prayers came in the form of sonic meditations and poetry, and they embraced more silence and solitude.

Throughout this album, you can hear influences from artists like Alice Coltrane’s kaleidoscope of harmonies, Jazmine Sullivan’s virtuosic voice, and Cleo Sol’s comforting sonic textures. Five Prayers also took inspiration from the interdisciplinary artist Lorna Simpson’s show Earth and Sky.

Five Prayers features my bassoon playing more than my albums that came before. While the bassoon is typically used in a classical setting, I wanted to take it out of the classical context and expand the sonic possibilities through electronic manipulation and genre-defying styles of music. I paired the bassoon with low grounding synths, warm electronic textures, Elizabeth Steiner’s grounding harp playing, and Diego Gaeta’s transportive synth playing that reflect my lived experience trying to navigate and thrive in this world fully and harmoniously while living with Bipolar Disorder type II.

Writing Five Prayers was an extensive practice of escapism and learning how to find peace while different traumas were constantly being reawakened in this last year. While working on this project, I was able to rediscover my voice again and relearn the roots of my artistry. Each of these five songs focuses on a different perspective of my current mental health and gives gratitude to individuals in my life who have given me a reason to continue on in this world. Convince Me to Stay comes from my lifelong struggles with suicidal ideation. You've Done What You Can is an ambient and minimalist call-and-response between the bassoons, voices, and synths. Hold and Be Held a harmonic response to the words of Nikki Giovanni's poem This World Is Not A Pleasant Place To Be. Myles is a sonic portrait of my little brother, who has one of the most beautiful and refreshing spirits on this earth. The closing prayer, I Know You're Always With Me, is a reminder to myself that however dark my Bipolar episodes get, I am genuinely never alone and that the debilitating paranoia is just that, paranoia. Whether it be my community or my creator, this final 16-minute gospel is one of gratitude and praise, surrendering my need for control in this life and leaning more on the shoulders of my creator.

Joy Guidry is a bassoonist, versatile improviser, performance artist, and composer of experimental, daring new works that embody a deep love of storytelling. The San Diego Tribune has hailed her performances as “lyrical and haunting…hair-raising and unsettling.” Joy was born in Houston, Texas, into a creative family that has shaped who she is today.

guidrybassoon.com