Turning Jewels Into Water (Val Jeanty & Ravish Momin)

Early into their collaboration as Turning Jewels Into Water, Val Jeanty and Ravish Momin adopted the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians’ longtime credo “Ancient to the Future” as a lodestar. Perhaps it seems like a riddle, but the AACM motto offers instruction to take what is sacred from the past and pull it into the present, using new means to make music that resonates with your lineage. Jeanty emigrated to the United States from Haiti in the mid-’80s, while Momin was born in India but now calls New York home. Since improvising together at Pioneer Works in 2017, Momin and Jeanty have integrated a world of beliefs and sounds—voodoo and hoodoo, mbalax and drum circles—into kinetic music made with cutting-edge electronics, from Sensory Percussions drums to Smart Fabric MIDI controllers. They pull the past into the present, then use it to imagine a better future.

Their 2019 breakthrough, Map of Absences, reflected on the corrosive effects of climate change and international strongmen and tried to dance toward some new reality. The massive rhythm and stuttering refrain of “Talang” felt emancipatory, while “Warm Winds of Jaipur” seemed caught in international crossfire, its sunken-world synths and nervous beat wrestling with the woes of the world. And in 2020, Jeanty and Momin responded to the pandemic by involving remote collaborators, like Iranian singer and percussionist Kamyar Arsani. Those tracks seemed to push against the restraints of the system, with corrupted bass and relentless drums punching back against oppression from all corners. In 2026, Turning Jewels into Water releases its third album, Morning Birds and Distant Drums, after its debut appearance at Big Ears.

Photo Credit: Ed Marshall Photography NYC