The Williamsport Guardian: Kayo Dot and Erykah Badu

MANDATORY MENTION: As mentioned earlier, I write bi-monthly music reviews for a local independent newspaper, The Williamsport Guardian, typically reviewing several albums each column, as well as commenting on local musical performances and events. Because I've been receiving a lot of requests for these reviews, and as far as I can tell they are not as yet published online, I've decided to begin posting them here. The newspaper itself is always well-written, attractive, and full of interesting insights-- AND free-- so be sure to grab a copy if you notice it some where.

Kayo Dot: Blue Lambency Downward (July 2008)

The intricate arrangements and avant-garde musicality of the incomparable Kayo Dot are beautifully evident in their latest release, the artfully innovative Blue Lambency Downward. The daring fragility and beautiful delicacy of their unconventional pieces, less songs then aural explorations, elaborate experiments in musical sound, give their work an awe-inspiring quality, an epic element that far from making their complex music dense or uninviting, creates a level of beauty that lures a listener in from the first seconds of seductive sound. When faced with these ornate sonic collages, genre seems an irrelevancy and classification an insult, as each piece swells to include aspects of rock, ambient music, free jazz, and classical music, functioning beautifully within each idiom before evolving again into something new.

The second song on this seven-song disk is the alternately tranquil and frenetic “Clelia Walking”, a six-minute barrage of musical styles that is constantly changing, morphing into contrasting musical ideas. It begins with contemplative electric guitar, made heavy by layers of reverb, then incorporates traces of free jazz with the uninterested mumblings of a saxophone before dissolving into a swirling section of distorted guitar and pulsating drums. The song goes on to include sections of calm violins and classical serenity, as well as further experiments with meandering saxophones and ornate guitar, each punctuated by startling segments of dissonant abstraction. This kind of daring innovation is present throughout the album, from the atmospheric uneasiness of the title track to the orchestral arrangement and sonic interplay of the final track, “Symmetrical Arizona”.

Kayo Dot’s latest album is an astounding musical achievement, a record working outside of confining musical styles and instead crafting an entirely unique sound. Chief composer Toby Driver’s decidedly unpolished voice appears regularly throughout the album, adding a vulnerable humanity to the seemingly godlike breadth of his compositions, demonstrating the people behind the innovation and the emotion behind the sonic virtuosity of his music.


Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Part 1 (4th World War)

Erykah’s Badu’s silky, sarcastic voice has been compared to the tuneful sneer of jazz great Billie Holiday, and her vibrant, kinetic music has been classified as “neo-soul”. Blending influences as diverse as modern soul and acid-jazz with hip-hop and Egyptian chant, Badu and her team of producers build slow-moving, atmospheric grooves that span across songs and defy traditional verse-chorus classifications. Often these grooves are lulling and cathartic, open palettes for Badu’s vocals to settle into and spar with, but sometimes become repetitious and exhausting, as on the overwrought “Master Teacher.” Far outnumbering the occasional moments of banality, however, are beautiful moments of musical profundity which solidify the record’s message and demonstrate the talents of its creators.

One of the most profound moments of the album comes at the end of the contemplative “Me”, in which the glossy sheen of modern production is stripped away, leaving only Badu’s unadorned voice singing in unison with a single trumpet, her voice naked and tearful as it stumbles and falters, straining to keep up with the horn’s long, jazz-inflected phrases. Here, and throughout the album, Badu spins tales of innocence lost and childhoods wasted, mourning the lives spent wary and afraid in American ghettos and the deaths brushed off and forgotten by a calloused system of economic oppression. An anonymous male poet shouts angrily at the end of “Twinkle”, a seven minute indictment of urban violence and government ignorance, shouting desperately at the world around him, demanding that his listeners “get mad...and say ‘I’m a human being, dammit! My life has value!” His impassioned words, ornamented by quivering organ and molded by cavernous reverb, contrast sharply with the jubilant profanity and sounds of breaking glass that begin the tune, providing a aural snapshot, a sonic collage that, miraculously, doesn’t sound false or contrived.

The true genius of Badu lies in her courage, in her willingness to take lyrical and musical risks as she creates a broad, cinematic soundscape, a sonic illustration of black life in America-- an angry diatribe of disillusionment and alienation, but one recited with the reverence and sensitivity of a mature artist who can rationalize as well as react. As she proves throughout the record’s eleven songs, she is not out to display her vocal virtuosity as other soul divas have, but rather to craft profound, evocative songs and lyrical images, even diminishing her own vocal abilities when it is necessary to reveal the person underneath. Her readiness to remove the cushions surrounding her singing to reveal the imperfections of her voice is admirable, as is the unabashed candidness of her cultural lyrics. On New Amerykah Part 1, Badu again demonstrates her impressive vocal chops and lyrical sensibilities, as well as creates a continual groove, a seamless experience without gaps or silences, deftly representing the constant barrage of sound and imagery that assails her as a black, urban woman.