Exposure (Esperanza Spalding album)


Exposure is the sixth studio album by bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding. It was released on December 16, 2017, by Concord Records. It is a limited edition album, with only 7,777 copies being available.

Background

With an aim to finish ten songs for this project, Spalding started broadcasting the writing, arranging, and recording of Exposure at 9am PST on September 12, 2017 via Facebook Live for 77 hours straight. The live stream took place at NRG Recording Studios and included breaks for sleep and sustenance, adding a layer of reality-TV voyeurism to the experiment. Spalding chose to do the experiment in 77 hours because she was once told by a reverend that "seven is a divine number. It’s the number of completion. It represents the earthly culmination of a divine thought", and she enjoyed that sentiment. She has stated that the premise of Exposure is that all the facets of creators only need the right environment to coalesce into completeness.
Exposure exists as a limited edition of 7,777 physical copies, all individually signed and numbered, as well as an original piece of notepaper Esperanza will have used to write the lyrics and music, allowing those who witnessed the process to own a piece of the creation itself, directly from the source. A second disc, labeled as "Undeveloped", was included with the album and consists of ten additional, bonus tracks of works made prior to the development of the Exposure.
All 7,777 physical albums were announced and available for pre-order on July 26, 2017, and were completely sold out on the final day of Spalding's live stream on September 15, 2017.

Reception

In his review for Pitchfork, Seth Colter Walls commented, "As tempting as it may be to think that disciplined artists like Spalding can just turn on a genius tap and let the product flow, Exposure reveals some measure of what is required when an established artist hopes to improve and innovate."

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Exposure.
Main personnel
Additional personnel