Fluxblog #270: Jyoti • Ego Ella May • Teyana Taylor • Jessie Ware
Just a little reminder that my constantly updated Fluxcaviar playlist, which includes a lot of new music beyond what I write about on the site, is available on both Spotify and Apple Music.
June 29th, 2020
Maladjusted In This Land
Jyoti “Orgone”
The first two minutes of “Orgone” is slow and pensive, with Georgia Anne Muldrow singing about feeling lost and ill at ease, and dreaming of living in Africa. Her piano chords are halting, but her voice is steady and certain – there is no question in her mind that getting to Africa is the only way she may ever feel complete. The final third of the song is more overtly soulful, starting with her addressing the listener – “I don’t think you heard me” in a sorrowful shout, and climaxing with her wailing “take me back, take me back” like she’s in total agony. It’s a brilliant conclusion to the song, paying off on the abstract ideas of the first section with the raw emotion and urgency of the feeling at the core of it all.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
June 30th, 2020
Running Straight Into The Hole
Ego Ella May “How Long ‘Til We’re Home”
Ego Ella May’s guitar parts in “How Long ‘Til We’re Home” are delicate and subtle, all gentle arpeggios and gorgeous chord strums that seem to glimmer in the empty spaces of the arrangement. The rhythm section is tighter and sounds much more crisp in the mix, allowing the treble parts to be more atmospheric and emotive. May’s vocal part is soulful but subdued, delivering lyrics expressing deep skepticism of the media and cynicism about the direction of society with a sober, matter of fact tone. The calmness of the music seems pointed – it conveys a feeling of resignation and lowered expectations, but still some small amount of faith and optimism even when she sings the words “I’m losing hope” at the end of the chorus.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
June 30th, 2020
This Ain’t The Right Time
Teyana Taylor featuring Erykah Badu “Lowkey”
Teyana Taylor is clearly living a blessed life – she managed to pull off the late ’90s/early ’00s hat trick of getting Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott, AND Erykah Badu to all appear on her album. This would be like if Charli XCX got Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, AND Justin Timberlake on her next record, or if Car Seat Headrest got in collaborations with Stephen Malkmus, Beck, AND Thurston Moore on their next one. It’s a staggering achievement in feature-wrangling, and certainly gives the impression that she’s been anointed by these icons.
Even more impressive is that Taylor convinced Badu to essentially make a sequel to one of her most famous and beloved songs, “Next Lifetime,” with her. According to Taylor she heard echoes of “Next Lifetime” in the track and decided to embrace the similarity rather than run away from it, and reached out to Badu for her blessing and to invite her to be involved. (I absolutely love the confidence of this.) There are definitely ways this could be a sort of crass move, but Taylor’s lyrics and performance come from an artistically genuine place – it’s not a tribute to the original so much as it’s in conversation with it. She’s examining the song’s themes of talking yourself out of infidelity despite the temptation of an intense emotional connection from her own angle. Whereas Badu’s original was sung from a position of bittersweet certainty, Taylor sounds more tormented and indecisive. When Badu appears on the track, she’s more in Taylor’s emotional zone – conflicted, and only begrudgingly doing the right thing.
Buy it from Amazon.
July 1st, 2020
I Thought You Were Saving My Life
Jessie Ware “Mirage (Don’t Stop)”
Jessie Ware’s vocal melody in “Mirage” is the same as the verses of Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer,” but that didn’t quite hit me at first – it sounded immediately familiar, but the feeling of this song is very different and the lyrics fake you out a bit by nodding to another famous song from 1983, “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” by Indeep. Ware’s new songs are referential even when they’re not directly interpolating old hits, and much like Dua Lipa she’s side-stepping declining recent trends in dance music in favor of something that sounds more classic and rooted in disco. But whereas Lipa’s songs have a brighter, bolder pop feel, Ware stays in the “classy” and “adult” pop lane she’s been in for years. She’s more of an aesthete, and excels when she’s curating bits of the past to create a vibe in the moment. “Mirage” conveys a luxurious sensibility; it presents dance pop as an aspirational product rather than a functional commodity good.
Buy it from Amazon.