Saint Disruption Releases Debut Album ‘Rose In The Oblivion’

Saint Disruption released their debut album, Rose In The Oblivion, today. The collective is led by renowned keyboardist John Medeski as well as scientist and ceremonial healer Jeff Firewalker Schmitt.

The two artists met in 2008 while on a retreat in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador to work with a shaman healer. Twelve years later as the world was experiencing a global pandemic along with socio-political turbulence, Medeski and Schmitt rekindled their friendship and began collaborating as Saint Disruption and working on the “sweeping seven-track opus of probing and political neo-funk,” as per a press release.

Rose In The Oblivion saw the duo assemble a talented group of artists including Lyric Jones and Last Poets founder Umar Bin Hassan to help Schmitt helm lyrical contributions as well as a group of musicians mostly from Asheville, North Carolina including “local Grammy winners Agent 23 and Debrissa McKinney, multi-instrumentalist and producer Michael Hynes, Austin Haynes of Free Radio and rising powerhouse vocalist Datrian Johnson, in addition to Hassan and Jones,” the press release continued.

Saint Disruption recorded Rose In The Oblivion in two locales, at Schmitt’s home recording facility, Nomatic Studios, in Asheville as well as Applehead Studios in Woodstock, New York where Medeski is based and where he took full advantage of the vintage Neve board there. Saint Disruption previewed their debut with the singles “Choke A Man,” “Instant Gratification” and “Last Poet First / Ukupacha.”

“‘Rose In The Oblivion’ “holds up a mirror to darkness in the knowledge that everything that lives is born in the darkness,” Schmitt said in a statement. “In the face of adversity and darkness, the rose is the emblem of hope.”

Stream Saint Disruption’s Rose In The Oblivion below: