sunneversetsonmusic | monthly music blog

ALBUM OF THE DAY

10 MAY 2026

Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace

JOY HARJO

Released 24 April 2026

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

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An enticing fusion of poetry, jazz and Indigenous spiritual storytelling in which language and improvisation move as one - intimate, searching and carried by a profound sense of purpose.

As a member of the Mvskoke Nation and the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States (2019-2022), Joy Harjo has spent decades dissolving boundaries between poetry and music. Long before wider recognition of spoken-word jazz hybrids, she was performing her poems with her band Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice, shaping a language that drew equally from reggae, jazz, rock and Native ceremonial traditions. Across eleven poetry collections, memoirs, plays, children’s books, her six previous audio recordings, her work has consistently focused upon memory, sovereignty and spiritual continuity. Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace, her debut for Smithsonian Folkways, brings these strands into especially vivid focus, not as a side project from literature, but as a fully realised musical statement that is built on what Harjo calls a “vibration of love” - music as connection rather than performance, a force capable of countering despair, violence and historical erasure.

That philosophy shapes every part of the album. Rather than separating poem from song, Harjo allows spoken word, flute, saxophone and ensemble improvisation to move with the same breath, making the record feel less like a sequence of tracks than an unfolding ceremony.
Produced and arranged by Esperanza Spalding, whose bass playing and intuitive musical framing are central throughout, the album balances intimacy with openness. Harjo’s voice is bold and direct, never over-performed, carrying both lyric beauty and conversational clarity. Originals reflecting contemporary political realities sit naturally beside a jazz standard (Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pier Hat") and the moving inclusion of "My Guy" a song written by her mother - uncovered by her sister - which gives the record an added sense of lineage and return.
The improvisational core is crucial: rhythms feel discovered rather than imposed, and the ensemble leaves room for silence, breath and reflection. Harjo’s Indigenous spirituality brings personal intimacy and collective resonance.