Rap stalwart Navy Blue (Sage Elsesser) has announced that his follow-up LP to 2024’s Memoirs in Armour, The Sword & the Soaring, is set to be released on November 11. Featuring production from Child Actor and a music video directed by Maxi Hachem, lead single “Orchards” is a delightful slice of abstract rap. Child Actor cooks up a beautiful sample of a piano melody and loops a dusty drum groove atop which Navy Blue shares some reflections on defiance and resilience: “In the wake of what I lost, fell asleep to live a dream of mine / Diminishing his wants, there’s limits to it all.”
Regarding the collaboration, Elsesser said: “Child Actor has been a guiding light and force for me and my creative process. When he shared the beat, it was titled ‘Orchard,’ just as ‘Low Threshold’ was. The titles of his beats are always spot on and seem to set the stage. This time with the warm glow of a winter sun piercing through the clouds. I visualized an apple orchard melting into a singular vanishing point, and began to write. Thousands of individual trees bearing fruit, connected through soil and roots, with an expansiveness that resembles the infinite source.”
Check out the video for “Orchards” below, and pre-order The Sword & the Soaring here.
