The purpose built next generation interstellar Dawn Richard thread

::flame emoji::

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE

Mmmmhmm

If anyone wants to subsidize me holding forth "at length" about this album I am accepting briefs.

I only have boxers.

I have nothing.

i am prepared to enter into some sort of foreign undergarment hedging arrangement if you have appropriate collateral.

Nothing.

NOTHHIIIIIIIIIIIIING

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19LPgLKrgLE

It's actually really frustrating because this album, while amazing, is also 100% on trend in virtually every way and hardly anyone gives a shit.

i wonder whether people might finally concede that an album's critical traction is 90% to do with the right PR people now

Got paid yesterday so I finally bought this album today, listening to it on the big speakers and WOW, like, so many levels to this thing.

I'm not even sure that it's about "the critical traction of an album being down to PR" so much as it is the way that... artists get *established* within certain narratives within the critical discourse. And Richard's narrative has solidified so firmly into "reality show artist" that it's impossible for most critics to even conceive of her on another.

Like, you can be a TV Star or you can be a Serious Artist, but it's impossible for you to be both.

(And even with the few, FEW successful crossovers - Girls Aloud? - the critical narrative is around the management, the production, Xenomania, etc. rather than their input.)

Listening to this album, I do kinda feel like, if something like "Swim Free" came out attached to an unknown name, it would have FKA Twigs level of "What... is... this... ASTONISHING artefact!?!?!?" narratives forming around it. But people have already decided what her narrative is, no matter what record Richard puts out.

it's an album that certainly deserves the accolades tinashe and twigs have received (2 records i also love a lot fwiw)

Oh yeah, I agree with that - ties into publication demographics too; vast majority of sites that have covered her are gossip/celebrity sites. And if she's in that world why would the critical community pay attention. ..

I love the Twigs album too but her image was critbait from day one.

wait why are we talking about Dawn getting shut out of critical discourse when her album was reviewed on PF and most major label R&B albums aren't? if anything her critical presence is far bigger than the impact her records have actually made.

If you consider "reviewed on Pitchfork" to be the sum total of "critical discourse", then I suppose...

In fairness it is pretty much all that matters to some people.

As I said upthread her albums seem to uniformly get good reviews but there's evidently no hype bandwagon building in the same way that it might be for an artist like Twigs with proper label backing, a promotional machine and minimal career baggage.

The fact that Dawn releases her records herself is almost certainly an issue here as well.

It's kind of a relief that the only place I ever encounter "these people" is on ILX.

I don't think people who are listening FKA Twigs and not Dawn Richard would even necessarily remember that Danity Kane were a thing let alone immediately associate Dawn with them or reality tv - a lot of those discourses run entirely separate from and oblivious to each other except at the most obvious points of crossover (Beyonce, Taylor etc.).

Dawn's challenge to find an audience doesn't strike me as one particularly unique to R&B, but rather has a lot in common with that facing many female artists over the past few decades. There's a quality of earnestness to her which I think can really impair a female artist's crossover chances absent popular success (or, alternatively, "one of the boys" style aggression or androgyny).

Lex's reference to Imogen Heap upthread got me thinking that the best thing that could happen to Dawn would be to have a "Hide & Seek" style viral moment - something that crossed over to an audience open to what she's doing while bypassing both the usual critical and commercial gatekeepers.

But even then the boost that created for Imogen's career was only relative.

...or she needs some kind of hit single that will work somewhat independently of her album or her persona. Asking people to take in a whole album to get an idea of who an artist really is feels like a tall order these days.

Sorry, skimmed Tim's post. That "viral moment" he is speaking of fits the bill. The thing with Dawn is that you need to create a feeling that the listener wants/needs to know more about her music. Taken as a whole there's just so much there that a lot of listeners will need a proper way in.

I'm on, like, my eighth listen of this album now, and I thought I'd be getting tired of it, but it's hit that "again, again, again" point where I don't want to listen to things that aren't it.

(I've got both Bjork and the lost Aphex SAWs sitting there, and don't want to go to them, want to go back to this album again.)

I dunno. Part of what's so *appealing* about this album is the cohesive *wholeness* of it. (Especially a relief after the unrelenting too-much-ness of Goldenheart.) Its sequencing is perfect, and more important, the *transitions* are amazing. Some of my favourite bits on this record are the supposed 'interludes' - like Titans into Warriors is astonishing, and then the slow, careful wind-down of the beat from Warriors to Projection is just... UH! Like, it's not *just* that the songs, individually are amazing, but the transitions, the liminal spaces between them are just so beautiful and perfectly planned out.

Like, this is what keeps making me think "prog" - it's not just the complexity of the music - those baroque harmonies! the technique of her arrangements is always, y'know WOW! - or the 'experimental' Aphexy sounds. It's the execution of Album Qua Album where you don't feel like you're listening to a collection of songs, you feel like you are listening to a self-contained suite, a symphony where each piece leads to the next. (This is far more noticeable now I'm not listening on Spotify with its awkward 2-second gaps between songs.)

i think my favourite transition might be one of the ones that isn't a transition, that actually marks one section finishing and another starting - the way "adderall/sold" DROPS into "swim free", it's vertiginous stuff. after how busy and head-spinning the first five tracks are, to suddenly be plunged into something as still and spare as "swim free" is, just, GASP

the transitions within "adderall/sold" are just spectacular build-and-release

SEE YOU IN MY HEEEEEEAAADD

this could be the album to unite us all

There's this one transition (and of course I can't find it when I'm looking for it) where there's this pounding bass drum going at it 4-4, and I can't even describe what the EQ filter is doing, but it's like it suddenly drops from this pounding BOOM BOOM BOOM kick and it just... goes underwater and keeps sinking and getting more and more muffled and watery, and that's just like... wow. Damn. I love the details like that.

OK, yeah, it's the aforementioned end of Warriors. And the underwater drum turns into a heartbeat, then the gauzy shimmer of Projection starts, and that is just such a perfect moment.

IMPRINTED IN MY HEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDDD

So... is that mask on the cover going on or coming off?

― longneck, Friday, January 16, 2015 5:45 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

still haven't worked out what i think the answer to this is

bought this the first day obv but I've been waiting for the right moment for the first spin; thread obv suggests I should just fuck it and put it on

Lex's reference to Imogen Heap upthread got me thinking that the best thing that could happen to Dawn would be to have a "Hide & Seek" style viral moment - something that crossed over to an audience open to what she's doing while bypassing both the usual critical and commercial gatekeepers.

But even then the boost that created for Imogen's career was only relative.

― Tim F, Wednesday, January 28, 2015 4:07 AM Bookmark

"Hide & Seek" was used as a tv theme tho.

Yes exactly! Or rather an end credits soundtrack right (The OC iirc)? I meant "usual gatekeepers" as in the usual ways that music becomes big. Obv there was some sort of executive who ultimately approved its use.

It's really "pre-viral" in the sense that it predates the ubiquity of social media but I feel like it's a good example of how some music / artists may have an audience out there for them but only if there is a means of communication and an appropriate context. For "Hide & Seek", connecting the song to an emotionally overwrought adolescent tv show cliffhanger was the best way to get past the idea of the song as ~My First Tori Amos does "O Superman"~ which was never gonna fly either critically or commercially.

I remember an Australian Idol contestant performed it the following year and all the judges were like "we were really concerned by this choice as we've never heard of this song before. But you've reassured us that everyone under the age of 20 knows this song."

I'm not sure what song you'd choose from Dawn's catalogue or what the means of communication would be but I do feel like she's an artist for whom those strategies would be more likely to work than others.

~My First Tori Amos does "O Superman"~

ha

"Hide & Seek" got a little VH1 and pop radio airplay when it was new but yeah it only really gradually saturated pop culture through The OC and Jason DeRulo, etc.

oh god, I'd managed to block that Derulo song from memory

to be accurate, the only song where i feel dawn goes OTT with the heapisms is "86", which put me off it for a while

~My First Tori Amos does "O Superman"~

this is otm. i really quite dislike "hide & seek"

Yeah I didn't mean they're that similar as artists, more that it occurred to me that there's an entire chasm that female artists can fall into when they're 1) too earnest to be sirens; 2) not aggressive enough to be one of the boys; and 3) not already a popular success. The 90s is littered with the bones of artists who fell into this category and even when they found an audience or occasionally even managed some kind of crossover success it felt despite of, rather than because of, the existing patterns of commercial or critical support.

earnestness is interesting bc obv someone like fka twigs is also earnest but in a completely different way?

actually, maybe a depressing reason is that dawn as a solo artist has been mostly unbothered about sounding sexy

to be accurate, the only song where i feel dawn goes OTT with the heapisms is "86", which put me off it for a while

"Superhero"! "86" just sounds like a Jam & Lewis ballad to me.

earnestness is interesting bc obv someone like fka twigs is also earnest but in a completely different way?

actually, maybe a depressing reason is that dawn as a solo artist has been mostly unbothered about sounding sexy

― lex pretend, Wednesday, January 28, 2015 10:08 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I think with fka twigs even her earnestness is filtered through a "sensuousness of surfaces" aesthetic (AKA what artists mean when they namecheck Aaliyah) that allows her to be experienced as pure affect. It's not that dawn's surfaces aren't sensuous, but I think the music doesn't sit easily within that as a primary frame.

Yay, new interview

http://www.factmag.com/2015/01/30/dawn-richard-interview/

really good interview. been wanting to read someone else (not a gossip site) interview her for a long time.

calypso (daughter of a titan) as in the greek myth, of course

Nice review, Lex.

I think I've had this Muhsinah EP on my hard drive for years but never listened to it til now cause the mp3s weren't tagged right, but the first three tracks are very Richardesque.

http://www.okayplayer.com/news/muhsinah-gone-double-ep-download.html

ok i haven't heard the whole record yet but i'm tripping out over 'Projection', esp. the rhythmic/sonic turn it takes around 3:00.

I think I'm most obsessed with "Swim Free"

here's the video for "choices;" i'm obsessed with it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPJMxz-ZoRY

ok holy shit "Warriors" is sooooooo good. I'm sure there's more going on than voices but they're all I want to hear now

officially back on the train, y'all

― The Reverend, Friday, January 16, 2015 1:29 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

I love that Tide music video - it captures that chasmic metaphysical solipsistic space that great sci fi often depicts - the ending of Solaris, neon genesis (I know you see me on this Brad!), that one part in neuromancer