Theaster Gates, The Black Monks of Mississippi, James William Blades

Amalgam is the soundtrack to Dance of Malaga (2019), the film Theaster Gates made for his exhibition Amalgam at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Opened in February 2019, it was his first solo museum show in France. The show starts from the history of Malaga Island, off the coast of Maine. In the nineteenth century the island was home to a racially mixed community, about 45 people by the end. In 1912 they were removed on the orders of the state governor and left without housing, work or support. Some were committed to institutions. Gates answered with sculpture, installation, film and dance, and the film sets choreography by Kyle Abraham, shot on the island, against archival footage. The score is by his collective The Black Monks of Mississippi. The exhibition then moved to Tate Liverpool from December 2019 to May 2020, his first major show in the UK. The album is the third release on Black Madonna Press, his label with The Vinyl Factory.

The double album holds eleven songs by Gates and the Monks, produced by James William Blades, who is also credited with soundscapes and additional music. Among the musicians credited are Yaw Agyeman, Kiara Lanier, Ben Lamar Gay, Mikel Avery and Joshua Abrams. Water runs through the titles. The first side opens with Across The Water and Kiss Me Before I Set Sail, and the fourth closes with Water All Around. In between come Born To Die and The Perimeter Of Yes. Reviewing the Liverpool show, the Guardian found some of the film's strongest moments where the Black Monks provide a musical commentary on the images. The last room holds casts of African masks on wooden columns. There the critic heard the Monks' music as "cries and deep-bass rumbles, rhythms, skittering drums, fragments of jazz and gospel" (The Guardian, 2019). Another Guardian review of the same show described the installed island as full of voices, with a soundtrack of waves and songs.

Two 180-gram black vinyl LPs in a gatefold sleeve with stills from the film and two inner sleeves with installation photographs, limited to 750 copies.