The Buttshakers

The rewind button brings the tape back several times and, with it, The Buttshakers. From the tape to the studio, the décor changes to an America lost in its own reverie, the America that Ciara Thompson left in 2008 to settle in Lyon, France. Untethered from the idealistic veil of her childhood, this America, her America, now appears in its crudest reality: disfigured by violence and racism, the streets transformed into a make-shift shelter for those without a home.

Black Lives Matter, Not In My Name, #metoo and other red flags light up the soundboard without stopping this desperate and breakneck race to darkness. Yet, when everything darkens, there is always an afterglow that cannot be extinguished, that final ember capable of rekindling on its own a brazier of hope. This is soul music.