Sample's simple but heartfelt notes explain the roots of this formidable release. While holidaying amid the beauties of the Virgin Isles, Sample stumbled over relics of the slave trade, symbols of suffering amid the sunshine. When his longtime pal Landgren asked Sample to create a project for the NDR, out poured this big noised joy tempered by the darkness of the blues and the pain that the ‘children of the sun’, early slaves, encountered. The result is a heady mix of brass filled fun as in the opening ‘I Wanna Go Home’ and a cracked melancholy like ‘I Believe In’. Not surprisingly there's often a gospelly feel that rolls like an Atlantic swell beneath the arrangements, as on the swinging title track, replete with Landgren's rich tones. Sample's own keys, as you'd expect, are supple and melodic, but he reins in the funk until he and Landgren rip it up on ‘Blue Abyss’. An album of constrained delights that never lets you forget the bitter history behind it.