Dexter Story has never been easy to pin down. The Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, and UCLA-trained ethnomusicologist has spent his career navigating the fertile intersection of Afro-jazz, East African musical traditions, and electronics, releasing through Soundway Records, Constellation Tatsu and World Galaxy. Yet ‘Inner’, his latest offering on his Music, Art and Inspiration imprint, is something decisively different: a conscious step inward rather than outward, a turn away from the ethnographic and toward the intimate.
‘Inner’ is new age, but not the corporate-wellness pastiche of streaming-era ” boring “chill” playlists.
Story describes the record as “an inward journey, reflective, playful, and personal guided by memory, instinct, and trust.”
Produced by music curator and creative director Rani de Leon, his atmospheric touch is perfect for Story’s curiosity to roam freely.
The ten tracks are concise and deliberately unhurried, functioning more as sonic environments than composed songs. Cosmic synth tones, notably a Yamaha DX7 borrowed from longtime collaborator Carlos Niño, whose own work with Story on Feel Recordings Vol. 1 pointed in a similar direction, weave alongside handcrafted percussion, ethereal flutes, and field recordings gathered from far-flung corners of the globe. The album cover, a warmly nostalgic collage of Story’s own childhood photographs, signals that these field recordings are not merely an ethnographic gesture; they are emotional anchors, tethering the album’s cosmic flow to something deeply personal.
The album opens with ‘Promised Land’, immediately establishing its thesis: recordings of the Red Sea’s waters along Eritrea’s shoreline are blended with hand-played percussion, breathy flutes, and synth tones.v’Sun That Shines’ and ‘Still Small Voice’ sustain the meditative trajectory, while ‘Shoshine’ and ‘Cradle’ demonstrate Story’s ability to generate maximum emotional warmth from minimal sonic materials. The wonky electronics of ‘Brown and Green’ remind me of early Daedelus.
Apparently, Story has an African-influenced album with Soundway Records due out this summer. For now, though, do yourself a favour and check out ‘Inner’!
