Improvisational titan John Medeski (Medeski Martin & Wood) and scientist and ceremonial folk healer Jeff Firewalker Schmitt had no idea they’d meet and strike up a friendship when they traveled independently to the heart of the Amazon to work with a shaman healer in 2008. But meet they did, and a collaborative creative relationship was born. Twelve years after that fateful meeting, in the midst of a global pandemic, Medeski and Schmitt felt an urgent need to join forces and make music as Saint Disruption, a spirit-driven, soul-inspired new musical collective led by Medeski and Schmitt. Today, Saint Disruption announces their debut album ‘Rose In The Oblivion,’ a sweeping seven-track opus of probing and political neo-funk featuring contributions from Lyric Jones and Last Poets founder Umar Bin Hassan amongst others.

Saint Disruption have also released their new song and selection from ‘Rose In The Oblivion’ entitled “Choke A Man,” an explosive track that unpacks the many forms oppression can take. A portion of the proceeds from “Choke A Man” will benefit the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Watch the official video for “Choke A Man” here and read more about the song via American Songwriter.

“This song was born amid the tragic death of George Floyd and the release of The Social Dilemma movie,” says Schmitt. “My artistic process involved asking how I might express the anguish of the oppressed. I spent three days in the space of prayer and reflection. There isn’t a word in the English language that adequately describes my feelings about the corrupt brokenness of the US government – so I mashed up the words ‘democracy’ and ‘debacle' when I wrote "sham debocracy."

Just as much about ancient struggles as current conditions, ‘Rose In The Oblivion’ is born from the world of spirits but void of the trappings often found surrounding that terrain. “I’m not looking for spiritual music,” says Medeski, “I’m looking for Spirit to come through.”

To bring ‘Rose In The Oblivion’ to life, Medeski and Schmitt assembled a cast of talented, mostly Asheville, NC based artists, including local Grammy winners Agent 23 and Debrissa McKinney, multi-instrumentalist and producer Michael Hynes, Austn Haynes of Free Radio and rising powerhouse vocalist Datrian Johnson, in addition to Hassan and Jones. The album was recorded at Schmitt’s Asheville, NC home studio, Nomatic Studios in Asheville, NC, and Applehead Studios in Woodstock, NY, where Medeski is based. The group developed an efficient workflow despite the challenges of living hundreds of miles away from each other in the middle of a pandemic, and Medeski took advantage of the vintage Neve board at Applehead.

‘Rose In The Oblivion’ “holds up a mirror to darkness in the knowledge that everything that lives is born in the darkness,” says Schmitt. “In the face of adversity and darkness, the rose is the emblem of hope.”