Vinyl is 12” black 150g packaged in standard 12" jacket with a 2-panel insert, with all artwork by Ambroise Bellec. Purchases directly from Backwoodz include a high-quality digital download of the audio available in format of choice emailed to customer upon release date.

ORDERS FROM BACKWOODZ START SHIPPING SEPTEMBER 15, 2025

Sortilège will be distributed
by Rhymesayers / Secretly in all regions by 10/10/25
Please check with your local retailer/distributor 

Sortilège is the new album from esteemed producer and DJ Preservation and ascendant talent Gabe 'Nandez. The two artists first linked on Aethiopes, Preservation’s 2022 collaboration with billy woods, where Nandez was featured alongside Boldy James on one of the album’s standout tracks. “Sauvage” became the catalyst for Sortilège, as the New Orleans-based producer and New York-based rapper gradually began exchanging ideas—first long distance, then in February 2024, when Nandez flew to New Orleans for two weeks, ready to work.

“It was smooth, very synergetic,” 'Nandez explains. “We listened to mad music—Boot Camp Clik, Scaramanga, Cuban Linx—and I was asking questions about all types of shit, trying to soak up game and history, which I did.”

The two also bonded over their shared francophone ancestry: Preservation is half French and 'Nandez is half Malian. These connections made their way into the music as well, via both aesthetics and sample sources, and that sort of exchange courses through Sortilège, bridging the generational, geographical, and cultural gaps between the two artists with a record that feels a world unto itself. Esoteric, yet blunt and uncomplicated as a fistfight, Sortilège erases the line between urbane and urban. It’s a movie in a lucid dream, A Clockwork Négritude projected against the wall of a construction site. Mixed-use residential.

Tracing this arc, fellow travelers Armand Hammer, Koncept Jack$on, Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko, Benjamin Booker, and billy woods all make appearances. Oh, and there are drums everywhere: drums that will rattle a hooptie and drums that whisper threats. Somehow, over the course of 14 tracks, Preservation seems to find his way to every instrument imaginable—yet each beat has room to breathe. Amidst this breakbeat symphony, 'Nandez’s unmistakable baritone glides purposefully, ever forward, a bristling warship in troubled waters. Every time the bass thumps, 'Nandez counterpunches. This is a record for heavyweight speakers and clunky headphones.

Sortilège can be translated as either:

1. Magical / Supernatural
   Act of witchcraft, magical spell, charm, or curse.

2. Figurative / Literary
   Symbolic enchantment, inexplicable fascination, often caused by a person, work of art, or an atmosphere.

We like to think it names the force at work within and between these songs.