D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

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

Favorite moment on #BlackMessiah: That moment 4:20 into Another Life where D'Angelo sounds exactly like the start of a cheesy sax-solo.

sympathetic toward stilladvance's view bc one of the catchiest choruses on this thing is buried in "1000 deaths"

This album is incredibly tight, no matter how "loose" it sounds. The groove on "Prayer" is the weirdest thing here I guess, but even that is just a relatively "normal" take on playing a J Dilla-type groove. Every other aspect of the track (including D'Angelo's masterful behind-the-beat singing) is completely on point, together, in the pocket.

I read there was a lot of editing on Voodoo, to make weird grooves a little less weird, and I'd be curious to know how much was done on this record. Really, the whole thing is both dense and amazingly, concisely arranged-- given how closely, say, the trumpet figures might threaten to step in D'Angelo's vocal space, or how the bass and drums never ONCE sound out of step with each other, my guess is there was some nudging going on here. Which isn't a bad thing -- just part of modern recording -- and actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it was less than on an average pop record. Mostly, what I get out of this is incredible musicianship, and people having fun at what they do.

otm

yep otm

want to hear him go even further down the inward-looking close-mic'd quavering intensity of voodoo, where you feel like you're suspended in amniotic fluid or something

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, June 26, 2014 10:59 AM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:D

heard this played in full in a manhattan coffee shop today 😎

who is the preacher on 1000 Deaths? Farrakhan?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw5V2s0j5zo

Dr. Khalid Muhammad on 1000 Deaths. There's also a second sample from the film "The Murder of Fred Hampton".

thx I figured it was him or Farrakhan but couldn't place it

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/arts/music/dangelos-black-messiah-was-released-in-a-rush.html

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

Give Saadiq credit too.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:50 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my semi-trolling line on D'Angelo has always been that Saadiq co-writing his two best singles ("Untitled" and "Lady") gave people kind of an illusion that he has a greater gift for hooks than he really does. in a way i'm kind of glad this album doesn't have a Saadiq collaboration or any overt attempt to recreate what those songs did for him, though.

yep. I mentioned Saadiq too because he's been the lurker and as a fan I'm struck by his not given as much credit as the Roots.

This will be the 573rd comment itt to reference Sly Stone, but the piano on "Sugah Daddy" keeps making me want to hum "Hot Fun in the Summertime".

i was wondering about the Saadiq thing. there are all these references to post-Voodoo writing sessions with Saadiq...did those come to nothing, or are we sure he's not credited on any of this?

With the track list whittled down to 12 songs from more than 20 “really strong contenders,” Mr. Elevado said

WANT

can't really see a "deluxe edition" but you never know

i would welcome a pt 2

also i'm not completely on board with this yet but i can tell it's a great, dense album and it probably doesn't help i've been listening to it on tinny computer speakers.

^^ Listened to it all day yesterday through my Mac speakers. Hearing it on proper speakers today at home made a world of difference.

music sounds shittier thru bad speakers hmmmm

Amazing innit

D’Angelo had hoped to commission art for the album from Emory Douglas,

i was wondering about the Saadiq thing. there are all these references to post-Voodoo writing sessions with Saadiq...did those come to nothing, or are we sure he's not credited on any of this?

― festival culture (Jordan), Tuesday, December 16, 2014 7:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah Saadiq has said in interviews that they've been in the studio together in recent years, but i doubt any of that stuff would've made the album without him being credited. probably in the pile of worthwhile outtakes that hopefully will see release sooner than later.

I wonder how many of these tracks were recorded by the band, in a room, or how many were constructed from miles and hours of takes, a la Teo Macero/Bryan Ferry. A guitar from here, a bit of percussion from there ...