Two days after the release of his most extraordinary album in decades, David Bowie succumbed to cancer. Black Star’s lyrics mused about aging—waiting for the X-ray results, forgetfulness—while his music continued to seek new frontiers.
Producing Black Star with David Visconti (with whom he has worked since “Space Oddity”), Bowie’s final album plays out in present and past, echoing moments from historic albums from the late 1960s through the end of the ‘70s, including Station to Station’s dark romance and the sonic washes of the Berlin Trilogy while employing a crew of young jazz-hip-hop fusion players.
The title track is almost prayerfully Near Eastern before edging into moments of free jazz. The recurring mood throughout is almost spiritual, an enigmatic account of life slipping away.
