The no. 2 Construction Battalion was the only all-black Canadian Army unit in World War I. The so-called Black Battalion was not allowed to take part in combat operations in France, but was used for menial work such as digging trenches and was also racially discriminated against.
Aquakultre now sends a “Letter To The No 2 Construction Battalion” with an anti-racist message from the past to the present, while a free jazz trumpet refers to another era of black history. That is the basic idea of 1783, the fourth album of Lance Sampson’s project: The musician, who comes from Halifax in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, tells the black history of his homeland by reflecting it in the various styles of black pop culture and linking it with the history of his own family.
The single “Gallows,” a hauntingly dark call-and-response gospel blues, commemorates his great-great-grandfather Daniel Perry Sampson, who was falsely accused of a murder he did not commit and executed in 1935 – a victim of racism. This is how it goes with blues and spoken word, with soul, gospel and also hip hop, sometimes musically more retrospective, rarely also ultra-modern, impressive and sometimes painful, with epic melodies and spare talking blues pieces through small personal stories and the big story. An impressive black history opera that fights against oblivion.
This review appears in Musikexpress 2/2026.
