Kelela - Cut 4 Me

"Bank Head" is top 5 this year obv.

― The Reverend, Tuesday, October 1, 2013 1:50 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark

the natural and just evolutionary end of the clapper

otm!

i just don't like the direction night slugs/fade to mind have gone in over the past year or two - those awkward, stop-start beats, the lack of groove or direction, the way all their beats feel like hanging in space waiting for something to happen that never does - no melodic or rhythm hook at all. they sound pretty but you can't get your teeth into them let alone dance to them.

Eh, that's not really true for me at all, if anything early NS/FTM stuff has taught me how to appreciate their newer stuff. And I absolutely love negative space in my dance music. Like I've long noticed when I break down with Tim over dance music it's usually because of his bias towards maximalism and mine towards minimalism. But Kelela's presence kind of makes this all moot by providing a focal point other than the beats.

But anyway, Alex in MTL otm. "Enemy" is the most gorgeous thing ever and this tape is somehow managed to live up to my high expectations. Besides, it's 2013 and slow jams are the best type of music to dance to anyway ;-)

And I like Ikonika but she's just about the border of what I'll tolerate as far as going in a more techno-y direction.

Can we talk about Nguzunguzu bringing in the "Moments in Love" flip at the end of "Something Else"? Like of course they do that, but you don't actually expect them to, so it's one of those perfect moments of unexpected obviousness that make me melt.

Kinda lol/fitting that I'm quite enjoying this.

Naturally.

I think because I struggled with the dancefloor aspect of a lot of early NS and affiliated stuff in the first instance, I don't mourn its diminution the way Lex does - to my mind, engagingly intricate/fussy non-functional pseudo-R&B beats is possibly a better look for many of these producers.

Oh yeah, weird syncopation being the other thing that's total catnip to me.

Really must hear this. Tomorrow, hopefully.

I have seen this played out in clubs and people did dance tho

(I was DJing at an afterparty at that Basilica Sound Scape festival with the dude who runs Tr1angl3 R3cords and he played "Bank Head" and people totally got down to it- it's just a different kinda vibe)

Yeah people have def danced whenever I've heard "Bank Head" out.

intricate/fussy

these are negatives to me. we've been here before, where others hear "weird syncopation" i just hear stilted and awkward

i've seen people dance to latter-day night slugs, i can't do it though - just too dry and stilted.

i did envisage kelela providing some sort of focal point but i feel like her songwriting does much the same "hang in the air on the verge of doing something that never happens" thing as the beats

haha I chose "fussy" as an alternate expressly to allow that yr mileage would probably vary lex.

tbh i don't even hear them as fussy or intricate, just awkward and rigid

I do too - rigid certainly, and if not always awkward to my ears then at least deliberately "ungainly" - but I suppose I can deal with it better as straight soundworld indulgence rather than when it sounds like someone took a perfectly decent house track and sprained its ankle.

It seems a reasonable thing to be turned off by though, IMO.

I could mostly give less of a fuck about a perfectly good house track at this point tbh

Even the straightforward "functional" dance music I'm into is club or ballroom or juke or falling in between those cracks.

Bun fire pon 4x4

but I suppose I can deal with it better as straight soundworld indulgence rather than when it sounds like someone took a perfectly decent house track and sprained its ankle.

i'm mostly thinking of stuff like "fogs", not to mention early jam city stuff like "arpjam", which are still some of my favourite dance trax of this decade, as examples of that urgency (not nec 4x4) which i find completely lacking among NS/F2M, including kelela, lately

Kelela's definitely going for a different thing than those tracks tho, more of a floaty, romantic vibe sometimes offset by jagged tracks. Something like "Bank Head" is more made to body roll and dance sexy to than stomp your feet and that's ALWAYS ALWAYS better.

We really need to have a thread on drums/bass/momentum/kineticism in music and what does and doesn't work for people, not necessarily dance music either. Because early NS just did not work for me at all on a basic physical level even when it was ostensibly similar to other stuff I liked.

Dance in between the beats

LOL some of us do know what dancing involves Rev.

I guess I specifically have a love for dance music that challenges me as a dancer.

This is one of the things I find awesome about footwork is basically its whole central premise as music specifically made for dance battles is the tension between how challenging it can be to dance to but still able to be danced to by a skillful dancer.

Thing is it's not just about dancing is it? A lot of the listening contexts for this music happen when there's no dancing at all taking place. I like footwork because the rhythmic patterns work for me on a very basic level and would never even think of trying to dance to it. And in 99% of the situations when I actually dance anything that particularly 'challenges' me would be doomed to disaster.

I mean obviously dancing is the primary purpose but if the music is any good you can get a lot out of it away from the dancefloor.

I guess I specifically have a love for dance music that challenges me as a dancer.

― The Reverend, Wednesday, October 2, 2013 9:19 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I broadly have the same sympathies, which is why in general terms jungle and 2-step and funky are closer to the centre of my taste than are typical house or techno.

OTOH my preferred form of "challenge" is one where the music is rhythmically more fluent, and dares you to try to keep up, as opposed to the inverse situation where the music kinda bludgeons about in an ungainly manner, in a deliberate debasement of rhythmic fluency vis a vis, say, house - although certainly I can also think of examples of this approach which I absolutely love.

Where I think the Kelela album does well is in raising the latter approach to its own level/form of fluency through intensification. I can imagine people dancing to some of this but it seems like a secondary effect.

i guess the dancing thing is a red herring w/r/t kelela specifically, i'm aware it's not made for that as such, but the same issues that have made NS club tracks in the past year-ish so undanceable to me are the same issues that make this underwhelming to me, it's the rigidity and refusal to do anything except hang there twitching. prettiness is really not enough when it doesn't parlay that into meat at some point

yeah i was gonna say why are we talking about this like it's a dance album

Yeah, that was a tangent. But Tim otm.

hah if ever further proof were needed that tim is la puta madre when it comes to sweetening up disses

Lovely listen, this. Currently on "Floor Show"

Only about half way through but not feeling this at all. With a better vocalist it might have worked but her voice is kind of thin and the songwriting isn't really good enough for it to work as R&B. Also the beats are so torpid and lacking in energy even when they're fast.

i gave it another try and it's not the negative space in the beats i don't like, it's the fucking stop-start lack of a groove - like on "cut 4 me", which is probably as strong as the album gets, even there you have that pretty good loop which just PAUSES after every iteration for no reason at all. kingdom started out making infinitely better vocal music than this so it's just massively disappointing.

Yeah I don't think this realizes the potential of forward-looking production and R&B vocalist.

It sounds like most of these guys aren't giving Kelela their best shit and her writing is pretty boilerplate at times. This crawls to the finish line. I still like it, but it's not quite there yet.

Lex, have you every considered the idea that you might be rhythmically inadequate or deficient, and not this music?

For Fans of: FKA Twigs, Ruby Goe, Aaliyah

i'm good

I've not paid much attention since The Perfect Lullaby but kinda despairing that this is the sort of R&B that Nguzunguzu decide to make when they get the chance.

This tape sounds pretty good to me, but I understand the indifference. It epitomizes everything that's meh about R&B in 2013: tiny voiced singers who mistake minimalism for substance; production that sounds like it came from glass studios where you can't touch anything; songs that don't stick; AlunaGeorge-isms, etc.

this sound just codes as super yuppie to me atp

This tape sounds pretty good to me, but I understand the indifference. It epitomizes everything that's meh about R&B in 2013: tiny voiced singers who mistake minimalism for substance; production that sounds like it came from glass studios where you can't touch anything; songs that don't stick; AlunaGeorge-isms, etc.

― Evan R, Friday, October 4, 2013 10:21 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bingo. this style is dead as ... dead. heroin's coming back in a big fuckin way

Y'all have never been so wrong.

ILM you disappoint me.

evan otm. it does sound "pretty good" but...that's it

also idk who "josephine" is but i'm calling sock at any poster who seemingly only shows up to snark at me

get over yourself, b

whenever i see this thread title i hear the weeknd singing "take a cut for me"

FWIW I'm not grading its quality either way, just expressing a general ennui w/ the entire approach

album rules, goes all in on ambience + breakbeats, & appreciate it being a pretty much continuous mix

on first listen all i dislike is the guest verse at the end of closure that's pretty out of place?

why am i the only one who's listened to this so far, it's so good

I’ve definitely listened to it (several times!) but am still trying to work out what to say about it beyond that I think it’s incredible. Just as assured and uncompromising as Take Me Apart, which is one of my favourite records of the last 10-15 years.

The singles make sense because (“Washed Away” aside which was essentially an re-introduction for her) they’re really the only tracks that work in isolation - the rest sort of demands the continuous mix sequencing that’s laid out here

need more time w/ this album for sure but "Bruises" seems like an early standout

On first listen I wish the ambient parts were a bit more engaging/challenging.. but when the beat drops in songs like the title track? Holy shit

I wasn't sold on those electronic tracks initially but I guess there are pleasing Dawn Richard type of dynamics here and I could see it grow on me. I suspect the album is backloaded. I need to relisten to it with headphones.

wondering about going to this, really ned to listen to the album
https://www.bam.org/kelela-res-keiyaa

go see her - she was incredible live the time I saw her in 2017, see the testimonials Extended Mix and I wrote three years upthread

just played the album front to back and absolutely loved it. love how it builds up to “Raven” and “Bruises”, the centerpieces, and then breaks it all down again.
man, if she should come this way again, I’ll be the first to buy my ticket

Alright, I copped

dc show sold out too quick, I didn't get tickets.

feel like I’m close to falling in love with this album

I still have to listen to this! Haven't had the right moment.

it’s definitely an album that demands the moment and mindset to be right. night time pretty much a prerequisite.

finally listening to this and yeah it seems pretty great. it's exactly the kind of album that will really open up for me on headphones with an edible and a run, i'm predicting. has late afternoon / golden hour vibes imo.

Anyone feels like the mood is similar to the SZA album ? Meandering, frail, lonely, vocals going up and down in vast and cold spaces and around skeletal structures. Raven with a consistent soundscape, SOS more sprawling.

A similar sense of desolation

Definitely the best thing she's done, but I'm a complete sucker for jungle breaks.

idk know Take Me Apart had more variety, and the songwriting isn't up to SZA's.

Raven is so, so good

thrilled to be seeing her live again later this year

so good I have to un-hide it: Raven

really digging the *Rave:N, The Remixes* album. so dreamy and cool.

https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b27342be66dc114499902e3a4d15

so the live album she recorded at the blue note is stunning. i run pretty hot and cold on her stuff but this is front to back incredible

Jordan otm.
Was not expecting any new entries in my top live albums at this stage, but this one is so good.
It might have the best recording quality of any live album. The bass is ridiculous.

still possibly my album of the year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2IpeDPmjFo

If there’s an album of kelela-does-dreampop in the pipeline, then I am totally here for it

extremely here for a kelela dream pop album or even heavy-end-of-shoegaze album?

Yeah sorry I just said dreampop because I have an aversion to the pesky s-word :)

Only just got round to checking her insta and no mention of an album yet. It is about time though. She does say that it was inspired by Octavia Butler and is about “what it feels like to exist in this climate”

new album new avatar out july 10

https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/q/75/i/5ec50bf1fff2a70a0ad538173f5617e56cff2227669d47e4cd928fc6fab01801/WARP405_Packshot_3000.jpg

second single "linknb"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrjRQyQFGh4

whoa

omg "point blank"!!!! I think this is the best one yet

it's my least favourite so far, the groove is just awkward

I find out arrestingly discombobulating, it's like a Reinforced track circa 1993

Or, like, JME's productions for Tropical 2.

Beach club music for seven-limbed aliens.

I've been relistening to her catalog since "idea 1" dropped and I've got newfound respect for it.