Thomas Prior’s *Amen Break* takes its title from a four-bar drum solo, originally derived from seven seconds of a soul B-side, that proliferated with the rise of hip hop in the 1980s and became a staple of drum and bass and jungle music. Used on thousands of tracks across many genres, it is one of the most sampled recordings of all time. Prior borrows that idea of the singular sample and applies it to New York in 2020, when the city ground to a standstill. The murder of George Floyd, the choice to wear a mask or not, an untruth uttered by a leader: each becomes, in his framing, a beat and rhythm against which history is composed.
Prior’s documentary photographic practice is rooted in the street, and he found himself stalking the once-bustling commercial districts of his city, absorbing a moment when conventional ideas around daily life, from the personal to the political, were upended. The images hover delicately around the tumult and uncertainty of that year, effecting an uncanny mix of tranquillity and stillness under which bubble tension, emotion, and isolation. A swirling, rushing city comes to a deceptively peaceful stop. Missed-delivery slips litter empty windows, yellowing newspapers decompose on stoops, and naked mannequins bear witness. Dwelling alongside these marks of absence are looted shopfronts, political posters, the residue of protests, makeshift morgues, and the social-distancing apparatuses that have ushered in a new order of everyday life.
Presented in a broadsheet newspaper format, the book is a stapled 76-page booklet with 47 colour plates, measuring 280 × 395 mm, with a loose silkscreened card cover. It was edited by Sarah Chaplin Espenon, designed and published by Loose Joints in December 2020, and looks outward from a decisive year to contemplate what comes next. With the release of this publication, the publisher states it will donate a portion of proceeds to 9 Million Reasons, New York City’s largest and farthest-reaching community food pantry, which provides free food to anyone in need, with contributions additionally matched 100 percent by a private sponsor. A limited print edition of 100 copies, with an accompanying 10 × 12″ digital inkjet print signed by the artist, is also available; the title is out of print in the UK/EU, with final copies shipping from the US only.
