D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

Nobody's yet pointed out that "Back to the Future" very nearly turns into The Charleston several times before the guitar drags it back into a funk groove. Love it for that.

i think it's striking how hard they push on that clompy-snappy-shuffle rhythm that you can hear on voodoo as well, i don't know at all but i very much associate it with dilla. there's something very tense about it, it tends to work against the other tendencies of the music and conceal the songs, kind of like a house beat can overwhelm before you learn how not to hear it while you're listening. i would expect a lot of the hidden pleasures of the songs to come from seeing where they work against that.

lex maybe you should just make out to this album instead

I have made out to this album and I can confirm yes, very good, A+.

hotsa hotsa

Very early predictions have him doing 90-100k. Not to make this all about sales, I just think that's pretty impressive given the gap between albums and the state of R&B music sales climate.

CRUT! (xps)

Seriously. Crut, DJP: fix your lives right now.

(Wait I'd heard Voodoo before DJP? How in the world...you know what, never mind.)

Does a guy called Steven Hyden from grantland post here because he stole my Another Life/Delphonics post from this thread

what a disaster for grantland

And hither is a merit runneth down of thy awful music writing http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/lightning-round-it-took-dangelo-15-years-to-create-his-new-album-black-messiah-it-took-us-15-hours-to-respond/

Interesting to note the cultural shift since his last album. D'Angelo because of internet is being exposed to so many more range of people who wouldn't be interested in neo soul when he was releasing Voodoo, even with it's Untitled smash hit video and number 1 album etc, now so much is different, the fans of his back then were still majority fans of the genre, now because of itunes internet hype etc reach is huge across all genres, ages, society.

lol a bunch of that writing is terrible. I mean:

And Black Messiah is messily precise, a ramshackle gospel of overdubs and swelling hexagonal production.

"messily precise"? "hexagonal"?

He's occupying a unique space now in music of an artist who hasn't been seen in 14 years but still has the coolness clout and hype cranking abilities to be relevant to a whole load of young people who don't know who he is and/or do know who he is vaguely or not but never were interested in him before and are going to be now listening to music that actually doesn't sound like the homogenous or quirky sound like everything else electronic music they usually have to listen to today, which I think is why so many people are over rating this album. It would be similar if say Erykah Badu hadn't released anything since Mama's Gun, and New Amerykah Part 2 was released today. For 2014 music, in a world where Frank Ocean rnb albums are rated as bonafide classics this album probably sounds like powerful colonic irrigation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdLvp630plc

yeah that definitely sounds like swelling hexagons

everyone who hasnt, go listen to Voodoo now

then get yr hand stamped at the door or u wont be allowed back in

:D

wondering how hexagonal production differs from pentagonal or octagonal production

grantland annoys me a lot in general though

This album is far, far far far more like New Amerykah Part 2 than anything on Worldwide Underground. New Amerykah pt2 has the live instrument lazy melodies session jam feel that W.U completely lacks (beat machines!)

― Raccoon Tanuki, Tuesday, 16 December 2014 17:30 (2 hours ago) Permalink

my first rt otm

I felt a swelling hexagon last Saturday night

No digital plugins used entire album, all mixing and processing done on tape and analog vintage equipment. It shows. As the sleeve says, play it loud for best effect, non digital recordings play loud so much better.

gross alfred

you can check out anytime you want but you can never leave

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Hexagon_Bar.jpg

it's 2014 where are the tetrahedons ffs

tetrahedrons even

my poorly formed joke ruined ;_;

This album is far, far far far more like New Amerykah Part 2 than anything on Worldwide Underground. New Amerykah pt2 has the live instrument lazy melodies session jam feel that W.U completely lacks (beat machines!)

― Raccoon Tanuki, Tuesday, 16 December 2014 17:30 (2 hours ago) Permalink

my first rt otm

― Tim F, Tuesday, December 16, 2014 11:35 AM Bookmark

b-b-but WWU is totally her jammed out grooving party album tho

i meant as in song (un)construction, not instrumentation

dodecahedrons forever

i have no sense of any of these as SONGS yet

― lex pretend, Tuesday, December 16, 2014 10:40 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I feel the same, they're more like really elaborate jams

― man alive, Tuesday, December 16, 2014 10:43 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

all of the tracks that ran together for me on first listen are revealing hooks upon hooks, in true D'Angelo fashion. this is making me so happy. the songs are there, they're just a little buried.

I think it's supposed to be like that, right?

― droit au butt (Euler), Tuesday, December 16, 2014 12:33 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

everything on this album is supposed to sound how it sounds

been thinking a lot about this too. Voodoo was recorded 'analog' as well, but i've heard lots of stories about how they put everything in Pro Tools and nudged everything around to get that perfectly imperfect Dilla groove in spots. now, everyone (including the musicians who made Voodoo) has fully absorbed that sound and you have people like Chris Dave (who plays drums on 'Prayer') who've made a science out of it and can do it on the spot.

Another thing this reminds me of in part: The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams/Devil's Halo-era Meshell Ndegeocello.

yeah!

I listened to this once and it was good

otm re: depth; i expect this to be giving up secrets throughout the year

FWIW this is my fifth spin and the first time the opener is really grabbing me.

a friend observed that one thing this has in common with Beefheart is a lot of really intricate arrangement and really skilled musicianship being applied to convey a sense of being "loose" or even "messy" when it's actually very deliberate

IDK, WWU may be less songs-focused but it's so relentlessly upbeat and party-reany that it feels very tight and shato anyway, it's Erykah's brightest album.

One of the "challenges" of this corner of neo-soul is that it often sits in a sweet spot between song and groove in a manner that makes it harder to grapple with than if it drifted more firmly into either territory. Both Black Messiah and NA pt 2 feel right in that pocket for me.

Ah my phone. "Party-ready" and "sharp". Wtf is "shato" Samsung.

Rev otm, hearing some m'shell-esque bassline grooves too

Has this been posted?

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/12/d_angelo_s_black_messiah_reviewed.html

has slate stopped being contrarian? big, if true

the drums on "Prayer" sound weird to me, like they skip backwards every now & then. it makes it hard for me to follow the beat because I'm dumb. I think it's supposed to be like that, right?

― droit au butt (Euler), Tuesday, December 16, 2014 6:33 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's loads of this going on, and it's entirely intentional! In the avalanche of reporting on this I can't remember where I read or heard it, but Questlove spoke about this. About wanting to make it sound like the drums 'tripped' over themselves, yet keeping up with the rhythm.

this album is def thick with grooves, more so than voodoo even i think, or more effectively maybe, as hes reigned it in a bit - this is much more concise than anything hes done before, which i think is a good look for him. hes forced to make his songs tighter, and a bit more pop actually, even when the songs arent maybe that strong or 'complete' (is it just me or is even charade a bit of a jam rather than pop song which is what it first sounds like?). but to me, dangelo has never been a 'songs' guy. yeah brown sugar was reasonably focused, but hes never been a particularly strong melody writer, though he does occasionally pull it out the bag, like with untitled. his most melodic moments tend to be ballads (ie another life). otherwise, hes in funk mode. and this album is pretty deep, in terms of rumbling/stoner-ish funk grooves (even if it isnt really a funk album per se). he even makes his voice take a backseat so it just becomes part of the groove, which is pretty brilliant and makes it denser. i dont care about not knowing the words. hes never been the catchiest lyric writer.

that typical dilla rhythm gets a bit tiring (also a bit dated to my ears) after a while, but i can live with it. had hoped he would have moved past it after 15 years though.

hes never been a particularly strong melody writer, though he does occasionally pull it out the bag, like with untitled.

Give Saadiq credit too.

this album is def thick with grooves, more so than voodoo even i think, or more effectively maybe, as hes reigned it in a bit - this is much more concise than anything hes done before

i feel like this is so wrong that they've switched the labels on your CDs, but probably more likely we're looking at the exact same thing from inverse angles, or something, like

http://www.askix.com/avav/images/optical_illusions/woman.gif

has slate stopped being contrarian? big, if true

"Black Messy Messiah: 5 Things D'Angelo Got Wrong with His Would-Be Masterpiece."

I will say the way the singing and grooves slur on this thing makes it feel like an even drunker album than "Voodoo." I know Questlove et al. worked hard to keep "Voodoo" a little off balance, but here the songs sound like they're on the verge of staggering, stumbling and falling over, which is kind of awesome.

yeah this is the opposite of concise, idk how you hear both albums & think this is D "reigned in"

loose and lively and freeform