Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, formerly known as Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, celebrates the cultures of New Orleans Black Indians, West Africa and the African diaspora on Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning. Renowned as an award-winning and highly regarded jazz trumpeter, he laid down his horn for this release. Instead, Chief Adjuah, as he is often called, relies primarily on his voice and an instrument he designed known as Adjuah’s bow. It’s described as an “electric double-sided n’goni, kora, harp.” He’s also heard on Pan African kit, percussion, synth percussion and more.

On the album’s opening cut, “Blood Calls Blood,” he’s solo on his “bow,” that is indeed shaped like a bow that propels arrows. His vocals are akin to spiritual, lamenting chants in remembrance of the ancestors. The assumed electronically-produced sound of waves crashing add a poignant reminder of the Middle Passage endured by captured Africans cruelly shipped in bondage across the globe.

There are also many lively moments to come, particularly when Chief Adjuah focuses on his hometown and the Black Indians. The ensemble jumps on the familiar though modernized “Xodokan Iko – Hu Na Ney.” It includes Trail Chief Kiel Adrian Scott, the chief’s twin brother, who joins him on vocals as well as percussionist Weedie Braimah, who shows up later for a great conga solo. A “chorus” of women vocalists—Amina Scott, Amyna Love and Lioness Sia Fodey—bring brightness as they collectively respond to the “call” with “hu na ney.” One of them excitedly yips like a small dog to hilariously end the tune. Great to hear female voices in the mix.

Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning looks backward to traditions and forward in utilizing multiple electronics that give it here and now aesthetics. It is at once spiritual music with socially-conscious messages while at the same time filled with the rhythms that help people just get through the day. In many ways it mirrors Chief Adjuah, 40, in that he is the grandson of the late, great Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr. and nephew to the extraordinary modern jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr., who also masks Indian as the leader of the Congo Square Nation.

On Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah proves himself once again as an insightful and progressive musician forwarding the flames of ancestral cultures.