Meshell Ndegeocello: RFI

really dig this record. it's less directly melodic and rhythmically shifting than her last few but i'm into that, these are really gorgeous, discrete explorations of mood and groove. "continuous performance" is my favorite i think

the "friends" cover kicks so much ass

yes

idk, I don't think I've loved one of her albums in its entirety since Devil's Halo but I'm always willing to sit down with them and try to work them out

same, but weather felt more disorganized than this one

Really must get this.

Yeah, Weather might be my least favorite album of hers, this one definitely has more going on.

New album is fantastic. Perhaps not as out there as TWHMMTMOMD or as raw as Devil's Halo, but super super pretty. It feels like a nice summation of her previous 4 "proper" albums.

ha i disagree with everyone (except re: the quality)!

i think it's her most direct, most accessible, most straightforwardly melodic album in years and years, possibly since the '90s. (when i talked to her she talked about this being more spontaneous and less heavy than other recent ones)

weather is possibly my favourite of her albums, full stop, though it's not a definite thing and a large part of it might be "oysters", but i've definitely never thought of it as disorganised, whereas this one shares with the new tori amos a v freeing sense of there being no overarching theme or sound, just "some songs, here you go"

favs so far are "forget my name" (which has the same vibe as sade does when she does reggae), "choices", "folie à deux" (well, "conviction" and "friends" are the two immediate standouts obv)

Well i for one definitely agree with:

"i think it's her most direct, most accessible, most straightforwardly melodic album in years and years"

I like Weather a lot too, though probably slightly behind those mentioned in my last post.

http://music.thetalkhouse.com/talks/meshell-ndegeocello-talks-michael-jacksons-xscape

I'm actually not wowed by the cover of "Friends" but do like much of the rest of the release.

huh i think devil's halo is her most outwardly melodic record though perhaps not straightforwardly (and perhaps it just hits a specific sensibility for me that the new one interestingly eludes)

i do like weather more than rev. "objects in the mirror"! kinda crash-lands with the chelsea hotel cover though

haha i remember reading this thread, downloading devil's halo, and getting immediately overwhelmed by "slaughter"

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2014/06/02/meshell-ndegeocello-on-why-d-c-got-rid-of-go-go/

I interviewed her a few years back circa her Prince tour, here's a colleague's interview with her re the new album and her DC go-go and more roots.

xpost "spontaneous": yeah, was thinking it seems more like continuous takes, live in the studio, whatever the actual process: stuff happens, instruments show up, do what they do, and it's not like repeat section C, lick 5, on cue, on cue---so many "performances" get static so fast, you know? Although, in my first listen to that xpost First Listen post, I played each track sep, and thought they tended to start great, but lose momentum. When I played it again opting for the whole, uninterrupted album, this didn't happen, for the most part, although when that little piano part showed up and took over "Colore," I did lose some involvement. Good headphones album, esp. when you turn it up (the vocal undersell is disarming, but risky).
Oh yeah, "Friends" now seems patterned on "Fame"! And the way she brought in Doyle Bramhall reminded me of Bowie and Stevie Ray: blues as a feeling, not a genre. Otherwise (re the way she talks about music in the NPR quotes and links, re "patterns on patterns," building up emotion, and atmosphere, I'd add) Sade comparisons prob pertain a bit more. Her own challenging approach to seduction though (you gotta not be too skurred of women speaking their minds for it to work that way).
Hope she gets to sit in with the Roots---maybe she has? Sorry, I can't get past Fallon himself lately.

"when that little piano part showed up and took over *"Choices,"* I meant.

She went to the same high school as me and had the same guitar teacher as me. I had no idea she was a bassist for Rare Essence though.

She also played in Prophecy and in Little Benny & the Masters. Her Dad is Jacques Johnson, a still-active D.C. jazz musician.

adore this

Listening to Comet rn, this is so awesome. Tim F otm about how it kind of draws together all the disparate threads of the last 4 albums

I love how the oblique flirtation w country is one of the things that kind of binds everything together. Super subtle, not out of place, but totally distinct

Also, the lyrics are kinda hitting me where it hurts.

i thought i had lost interest in this record but the weather turned and it opened up to me in a new way. still wish i liked it more? maybe i will

digging this

I like Comet alright but none of her albums after Devil's Halo have felt fresh and exciting to me. She seems stuck in a holding pattern. The "Friends" cover is weird and exciting but turned out to be a total red herring for the rest of the album and I wish she'd played around with that sound more.

I didn't really like the stripped-down rock sound of "Weather" and "Devil's Halo", does the new one continue in the same vein? I can see why she would want to go to that direction, but this kind of music does nothing to me, I much preferred the psychedelic/freaky r'n'b and soul of the earlier records.

The Nina Simone debut album was a bit of a disappointment too, I liked the arrangements and production, but the truth is that as a singer Ndgeocello simply doesn't have the range and versatility needed to cover those tunes. (There was a good reason why she didn't sing herself on her jazz album, but instead had guess singers better fitted for the genre.) A good case in point is "Four Women": in the original version, Simone alters her voice to fit the role of each of the four women in the song, and the final "PEACHES"

...and the final "PEACHES" that closes the tune is absolutely dripping of both sarcasm and barely suppressed rage. But Ndegeocello sings the whole song with her trademark monotone voice, there's no variation between the different women's lyrics, which makes the whole tune half as effective and expressive as the Simone version.

"guess singers" = "guest singers"

"Thank you Reverend" = http://www.reverendguitars.com/wp-content/files_mf/1389029931fellowship_SBLK_main.png

harrumph imo her take on "nobody's fault but mine" is extraordinary

Just catching up on 'Comet'...really like this...some strong material on here...like the sparse/moody production...nice

This album fell even a little bit for me but I still think it's really great and does a lot of interesting things

It's pretty good. I didn't really like the bare-bones blues rock of the previous two albums (not counting the Nina Simone tribute, which had its own flaws), so I was pleased to note that she's kinda returned to the psychedelic neosoul (or whatever you can call it) of Comfort Woman and The World Has Made Me..., even if the sound is still more stripped-down than on those.

still adore this

we did dis togedder last year
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/chocolate-grinder/listen-bunnybrains-if-mountain-was-a-man

and dis one
https://soundcloud.com/bunnybrains/colorado

thanks

man, comfort woman is an amazing record. i have not listened to the rest of her discog that much but it feels underrated to me by this thread?

i got turned onto it because syd tha kid put "love song #1" on this (great) playlist for rookie (http://www.rookiemag.com/2015/09/life-soundtrack-syd-tha-kyd/) and damn the whole record is mostly good chilled out neo soulish kinda stuff. just like, the perfect sound. i wish there weren't any screaming guitar solos but oh well.

anywho just wanted to rep for that one. she's playing in nyc in a few months.

that playlist really is great

yes

and yeah comfort woman is an incredible, spacious record. a great headphones record too, so much detail

i love all of her records though tbh. i only learned recently that the first two were produced by david gamson of scritti politti which 1) blew my mind 2) made a ton of sense when i spent a ton of time with anomie and bonhomie this year, on which meshell features

also unsurprisingly i love the aggro screaming psych guitar solos, they are literally the best part of "love song #3"

Yeah I only got Comfort Woman last year and I became totally obsessed with it for a while, such an unabashedly sexy album. Love the reggae bass and occasional attempt at Timbaland style stutters.

I don't think I've been as vocal in my love for Comfort Woman as for TWHMMTMOMD or Devil's Halo, but it's the single best album to have sex to ever made by anyone.

I would concur, if this album didn't exist:

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/187/MI0000187639.jpg

(Which I would recommend it to anyone who wants to listen to some slow cosmic sexy soul music.)

But Comfort Woman is definitely up there, yeah.

soooo....where do I start? I own Peace Beyond Passi and nothing else. I've been dipping into Bitter, Comfort Women, Weather.

bitter and comfort woman are great introductions imo. I also think you'd loooooove devil's halo

Comfort Woman is as good a place as any. It's worth noting that most of her albums tend to have a distinct vibe from one another, so there isn't really any one album that can be taken as representative of her work. The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams might be something of an exception because it's an expansive tour de force whereas the rest of her albums tend to hone in on doing one thing. But I can also see finding that album overwhelming.