D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

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 ...

I doubt there's much of the latter if this was all done analog. No one's gonna go through the laborious process of tape splicing these days.

I love how the guitar in "till it's done (tutu)" is consistently about .1s behind the beat the entire song, it's just perfect

i'd be willing to bet that it's almost entirely overdubbed/pieced-together.

Plenty of people record analog then dump to digital for further refinement/editing.

i'd be willing to bet that it's almost entirely overdubbed/pieced-together.

― festival culture (Jordan), Tuesday, December 16, 2014 10:51 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

on one or two listens this was definitely my read

as long as we're talking concise vs. sprawling/messy/whatever, the songs on BM feel judiciously edited to me, though that might just be in comparison to the 6/7min avg track length on Voodoo. no reason these songs couldn't support being stretched out like that, but he opted not to do that, which I think was a really smart move to help differentiate it.

Oh, definitely overdubbed, just saying I love the delay

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B47mAtIIAAE5dhQ.jpg

"no digital "plug-ins" of any kind were used in this recording. all of the recording, processing, effects and mixing was done in the analog domain using tape and mostly vintage equippment."

What constitutes "maximum volume"?

usually 10

11 in certain cases

i'm not a purist by any means, but i like knowing that that's true of this record

"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"

nah, not really. dominique really said what i was getting at, but the song lengths on this thing are the shortest hes ever done, which indicates hes been thinking about how to compress his ideas around funk/sloppiness/groove into slightly more compact frames. within that, theres a lot of clever editing/arranging thats gone on. even something like sugah daddy packs quite a lot into its relatively short time, where on voodoo, its equivalent (chicken grease) was allowed to be a bit meandering cos he was making a show of stretching out a la 70s funk. here, the arrangements are tighter. the grooves still seem loose, i think the playing aesthetic has stayed the same, anyone whos followed quest/dilla over the last 10-odd years will be familiar with what theyre doing, but i think its the focus this time that makes this different to voodoo, its sloppy but with a sharper intent to it. theres less of a 'just capturing whats happening in the studio', its more 'this is what we can do with what we do in the studio'.

anyway, for all the bilal/erykah comparisons, songs like charade and aint that easy remind me a lot of older van hunt.

some interesting background on the album (even on the font!) and its quick release here -
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/arts/music/dangelos-black-messiah-was-released-in-a-rush.html?_r=0
the fact it was motivated by ferguson still makes me think 1000 deaths should have been the first song. for me thats where the album really begins, like devils pie did on voodoo. i might change it on my ipod.

reading along to the lyrics has def cracked this album open further for me

xp
Ain't That Easy is very reminiscent of Hello Goodbye and The Charade has shades of Dust. There are certainly grounds for comparison with later Van Hunt i.e. "What Were You Hoping For?"

How is Playa Playa not the perfect opener/scene setter?

oops i totally forgot about playa playa lol

the fact it was motivated by ferguson still makes me think 1000 deaths should have been the first song. for me thats where the album really begins, like devils pie did on voodoo. i might change it on my ipod.

hang on, 1000 deaths isn't the first track??

Ha! My review download was ordered alphabetically. And it really works that way!!

They can put a man on the moon but they can't get review downloads to appear in the right order.

but hes never been a particularly strong melody writer,
-StillAdvance

W-W-w-w-w WHATTT[Kyle's mom]

RACCOON chooses BROWN SUGAR

BROWN SUGAR sprinkles itself all over this Opinion!!

StillAdvance fainted!!!

this album is def thick with grooves, more so than voodoo even i think, or more effectively maybe
-StillAdvance

Now you're just wreckless, go home you're drunk. And you've puked down your new LED light christmas jumper.

What he's saying is that D'Angelo's more about fitting his voice in with the groove just right, as opposed to singing 'melody lines'. Like, the first time I listened to BM I remarked on how little D'Angelo there is in the overall mix. It's all down to little 'pah-PAH''s and 'dap-dow''s, squiggling songlines that weave complexly in and out the beat. He's definitely there of course, but his vocal lines work more like another, highly flexible, instrument than anything else. I hear parallels in things like later Miles Davis records where the trumpet will serve to pepper and punctuate the groove of the other musicians - always central, always essential, but rarely taking over from the rest of the action.

love "brown sugar", but not sure the upper-register vocal hook goes any great distance toward proving d'angelo as a tunesmith

apparently they're cramming a 56-minute album onto one LP for the vinyl release, boo

yeah, sucks, shoulda given it to LITA

What he's saying is that D'Angelo's more about fitting his voice in with the groove just right, as opposed to singing 'melody lines'. Like, the first time I listened to BM I remarked on how little D'Angelo there is in the overall mix. It's all down to little 'pah-PAH''s and 'dap-dow''s, squiggling songlines that weave complexly in and out the beat. He's definitely there of course, but his vocal lines work more like another, highly flexible, instrument than anything else. I hear parallels in things like later Miles Davis records where the trumpet will serve to pepper and punctuate the groove of the other musicians - always central, always essential, but rarely taking over from the rest of the action.

dangelo is a gospel singer 1st, and this album even though he sidelined the keys is his most gospel vocals yet, even if betray my heart would be the only straight gospel song here. being a gospel singer in melody is not just about the straight pop hooks you and StillAdvance are trying to compare him to, the melody is created through the verses and the song as a whole.

I'm declaring Till Its Done a straight Badu homage

holy shit Jesse Johnson from The Time is on guitar somewhere. Percussion on Sugah Daddy is not by Questlove but James Gadson and writing contributed by Q Tip on that track too. D Angelo down as playing 9 instruments on album.

is anyone else credited with doing a lot of the keyboards? because there's some really lovely piano on the album

I would assume that's D himself!