With the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street still riding high in the charts, Keith Richards is revisiting another decades-old project, releasing new music with the Wingless Angels. Wingless Angels II, an album of Rastafarian spirituals, is the group's first release in 13 years.
Richards began playing with Jamaican singer Justin Hinds in the early 1970s, when he visited Kingston. "I was just one of the crowd," Richards recalled. "They had no idea who the Rolling Stones were. They didn't even give a shit." Together with Hinds, a celebrated ska and rocksteady musician, Richards jammed with neighbours, local fishermen and divers, exploring Rasta chants, Nyabinghi drumming and the country's devotional traditions. Although amateur recordings of the sessions began in 1972, formal studio production didn't happen until 1995, when a friend of Richards arrived at his Ochio Rios home in a mobile recording truck. The first Wingless Angels album was released in 1997, on Richards's own Mindless label.
Hinds, former leader of ska group the Dominoes, died in 2005. "He [was] a diamond," Richards said. "When you hear his voice, you just get a nice warm glow. He was always incredibly attuned to what was going on around him, and he would calm other brothers down if they were getting too jumpy, or stop a fight from going on if he had to." But Hinds was also a remarkable singer. And in the year before he died, Richards had once again been recording their collaborations, preparing for a possible release.
Now, those tapes will see the light of day. "It was very organic," Richards explained. "Justin would just say, 'OK, let's take up a beat', and he would start chanting, with the drums going. We'd start in the afternoon and go 'til 11 or 12 o'clock at night." Nothing was planned, Richards said. "You can't get artsy with the tracks or anything. It is what it is. I realised early on that this was the way I wanted to record this band. They've got to feel free just to do it, and that's it."
The result – streaming now at the Wingless Angels website – is a world away from the Stones' blues rock. With proceeds from the album going to Hinds's family, according to a recent interview, Richards is also reissuing the first Wingless Angels as part of a double-disc set. "[Wingless Angels] play deliberately at just slightly under heart rate," Richards said. "The drumming goes deeper than your bones. It's marrow music." The album is out on 23 September.
