Honora by Flea

Released on 27/03/2026 by Nonesuch
Main artists: Flea
Genre: Alternative & Indie

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For decades, Flea has been one of rock's most notorious extroverts and a linchpin of one of the biggest bands on the planet. He'd be the last guy you'd expect to have a secret side but his solo debut, Honora, exposes the esoteric underbelly of the famous bass man's aesthetic.

Turns out that as a kid, before Flea leaped into rock 'n' roll, he was busy blowing trumpet and digging jazz, surrounded by jazzers thanks to his musician stepdad. He never lost his love for the music, and to prepare for letting his swinging spirit loose on Honora, Flea spent a couple of years honing his trumpet skills anew (He's busted the instrument out onstage periodically over the years).

The record's a bit of a mixed bag, but it's dominated by jazz tracks built around bad-ass grooves and spare, sharpshooting arrangements. Flea teamed up with some of the most cutting-edge players around, including saxman Josh Johnson, double bassist Anna Butterss, guitarist Jeff Parker of Tortoise fame, and drummer Deantoni Parks. Together they create visceral moments more about mood-building than pyrotechnic soloing, though everyone (including Flea on both trumpet and bass guitar) has some serious chops.

"A Plea" drops Flea's impassioned spoken-word prayer for peace, love, and unity atop a supple, sultry dance between his and Butterss' electric and acoustic basses, respectively, coming off somewhere between the politicized poetry of Archie Shepp and Gil Scott-Heron. On "Traffic Lights," guest vocalist Thom Yorke lets loose with some slippery murmurs buoyed by Flea's percolating bass and punctuated by his bee-sting trumpet lines.

"Morning Cry" employs stop time and syncopated unison riffs to frame an exploratory jam with shades of mid-‘60s New Thing jazz, while electronic percussion and a dub-like vibe give the trumpet-forward "Frailed" a more modernistic vibe.

Flea and his crew take some unexpected source material into fresh territory. The old Funkadelic guitar feature "Maggot Brain" is transmuted from a psychedelic six-string tear-down to a gently cycling pattern providing a place for some spacey trumpet smears. Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman" gets a stripped-down makeover dominated by Parker's reverb-laden guitar and Nick Cave's melancholy croon.

By the time things come to a close with the incantatory psych-funk of "Free As I Want to Be," we've onboarded so many commanding beats that one of the album's most hypnotic grooves might nearly slip by unnoticed. (The key word there is "nearly.") It's tough to say what percentage of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' crowd will vibe with Honora, but the album will undoubtedly attract plenty of heads seldom found within earshot of Flea's day job. © Jim Allen/Qobuz

Honora

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