Black Thunder is the new album by Seattle-based artist Brittany Davis, which arrived on June 13 2025 on Loosegroove Records, a label run by Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard. This release features Davis on keys & vocals, Evan Flory-Barnes on bass, & D’Vonne Lewis on drums, and recalls artists like Nina Simone, Roberta Flack, & Rahsaan Roland Kirk in its immersive, incantatory spirit. The trio, who barely knew each other previously, completely improvised Black Thunder in a surge of interactive creativity across 2 days in the studio. The pressure-cooker environment did away with overthinking & brought each musician’s A-game. Steeped in Black & Afrocentric cultural influences, this is Brittany’s most poignant & cathartic work to date. “In some way, it feels like they’ve been preparing for this recording all their lives. Honing their instrumental craft & ability, of course but more importantly, preparing their ears, emotions, & egos to be fully present and create absolutely in the moment,” Producer Josh Evans said. “To listen deeply and respond empathetically. To speak with uncomfortable honesty. To listen, and be vulnerable.” Davis — who has been blind since birth, arrives at Black Thunder via considerable headwinds. In 2023, she released her debut album, Image Issues, also via Loosegroove Records. The album met critical hosannas, including recognition & appearance on NPR Tiny Desk Home, KEXP, World Cafe & SPIN. In 2023, Davis was featured on ABC’s Good Morning America, which noted, “She uses her music to connect with people and fight for a more inclusive world.” Black Thunder marks a shift away from Image Issues’ urban soul-funk built upon drum machines & programmed keys; instead opting for a fully live, organic performance, one that showcases her stylistic maturation, pure expression and the breadth of her versatility. “She is channeling something or someone else,” the producer adds. “Voices, spirits, the divine — something bigger than the room itself. Something more than just the 3 musicians playing, something older, something deeper.” “So many things I’ve never seen / but I’ve touched it all, it seems,” Davis sings on the album’s first single, “Amid the Blackout of the Night.” “She’s never seen the stars; she’s never seen the sun nor moon; she’s never seen the night. But how can she somehow still perfectly capture that feeling of looking up into the night sky?” Evans says. “Is there more to seeing than just sight?” Black Thunder is the work of a brilliantly unique artist charting a course all her own. By bulldozing easy narratives and accessing the realm of pure feeling, this latest missive is a creative thunderclap that will be impossible to unhear.
I had the complete honor of getting to spend a little toGether time in the now with Brittany Davis to dive body Mind and soul equally into the new ‘Black Thunder’ record. We talked about the seed to flower story of its birth and how its way of being created was a true new definition to organic. Spiritual Jazz might be the label where you’d find someone put this record, but it is so much more thank any one idea can fit. It is deep in places where toes can no longer touch the bottom and that’s where its treasures are discovered. We get into the celebration of all people within this music and how perceptions become true entities. We point to a couple of tracks for examples, surely ever person should feel each one differently on their own but Brittany talks about her desire to have this album exercise individual’s minds. We talk about the clear differences between her debut album, ‘Image Issue’ while really shouting out the similarities that are present. This is music of the then, the now and the then of later now(s). Brittany opens up about her blindness and how it takes a different way to make connections within the face of reality, but at the end of the day, this shining star knows more just by being present and paying attention. At the end, we may have come up with a podcast idea – let’s see if that connection gets fulfilled. This is one of my favorite new sonic stories to flip through and I am proud ot be able to share a bit of it and Brittany with you.
