Jamila Woods

can i buy it?

as of october 6, yes:
https://jamilawoods.lnk.to/heavn

tour dates:

LIVE DATES
October 8 - Austin - ACL
October 14- Afropunk - ATL
October 15- Austin - ACL
October 27 - Jazz Cafe - London, UK *headlining
October 29 - Ideal Bar- Copenhagen, DK *supporting Jordan Rakei
October 31 - Melkweg - Amsterdam, NL *supporting Jordan Rakei
November 1 - Pitchfork Avant-Garde - Paris, FR
November 2 - Vooruit Balzaal- Gent, BE *supporting Jordan Rakei
November 3 - Gebäude 9 - Cologne, DE *supporting Jordan Rakei
November 4 - Crossing Borders Festival - The Hague, NL

pumped this is coming out, guess there were some sample issues to clear

i think the deal is that she signed with a label and they wanted to pull it off the web and put together a marketing/touring plan

yes this is great, the one that interpolates Paula Cole is so weirdly brilliant

new album, Legacy! Legacy!, coming on May 10: https://jamilawoodsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/legacy-legacy

I need another listen to absorb ZORA (I get the sense this one will be a lot denser than Heavn), but GIOVANNI is grebt, reminded me of a thread idea I had for guitar solos popping up in songs you don't expect them to

i'd missed "giovanni" but it and "zora" are both lovely - i really like the neo-soul that ROCKS OUT in the chorus twist in "zora"

can we ID the people represented by these songs titles? i know some of them, but not all:

Betty
Zora
Giovanni
Sonia
Frida
Eartha
Miles
Muddy
Basquiat
Sun Ra
Octavia
Baldwin
Betty

also this album is very good

Fill in the blanks, I guess. Also, if any of these are super obvious from the lyrics, sorry ... I'm a lyrics-last kind of listener.

Betty
Zora Neale Hurston
Nikki Giovanni
Sonia
Frida
Eartha Kitt
Miles Davis?
Muddy
Jean Michel Basquiat
Sun Ra
Octavia Butler
James Baldwin
Betty

is this out now?
also presumably in addition to your naming, which seems accurate: Betty Friedan, Sonia Sanchez, Frida Kahlo, Muddy Waters, Betty Davis.

i assumed Frida Kahlo ... don't know how I didn't even think of Muddy Waters, lol

i don't think it's out yet. but it's close. and it's blowing me away right now. Jamila is something else, man.

May 10th is the official release date, but I'm not sure if it's streaming anywhere yet.

I'm super excited for this; Heavn was amazing and i'm all in after hearing her live.

Miles -> Muddy is *fire emoji*

I have pretty high expectations for this--Heavn is by far my favorite thing to come out of that whole Chicago/Chance-adjacent scene. Trying not to be too bummed that she's not coming up to Montreal...

Heavn is by far my favorite thing to come out of that whole Chicago/Chance-adjacent scene

cosign!

omg MILES

Good lord, this album is deeeeep. I don't know who Slot-A is, but the production is super impressive. The BETTY house remix at the end is like bespoke ILM-bait; plus at times this sounds like Portishead, 80s rnb, and 70s fusion. I will be *confounded* if people don't flip for this.

just cracking this and finding it a bit uneven (gratuitous guitar solos and lengthy unnecessary rap bars) but hearing a lot to like too

I found it rather dense until MILES/MUDDY (as noted by alpine upthread) and then the whole thing opened up for me

yeah, i tend to listen to new albums halfway through and then restart them two or three times and tackle the back half as a second project, so i've yet to get to miles... may want to push through, eh?

maybe start off with EARTHA, which is pretty straightforward, and go forward from there

lol, that's where i keep restarting! Okay, let's get through it.

plus at times this sounds like Portishead

Two-thirds of them are on "Muddy," though in this case they're closer to Electric Mud than to Portishead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvV9GTgHwes

(The very Chicago [city] Electric Mud.)

It doesn't rise to the level of a flaw, but I do think the second half is both a little better than the first and easier to get into. ZORA-->GIOVANNI almost sounds like a single, complex suite compared to the distinctiveness of each track from MILES on. BALDWIN is particularly beautiful.

xp
oh that's funny, it was definitely Muddy that I had in mind but I hadn't checked the credits yet

i'm already v into the first half of this so i assume i'm gonna die during the second half

wow

XD
I almost posted earlier “I think Brad will love this” but then second guessed my perception of your taste

"sun ra" "octavia" and "baldwin" are all amazing

Add “Betty (for Boogie)” to that. This album just keeps getting better all the way through to the end.

I think this might be my favorite album of the year so far? I wasn’t totally sold on Heavn, even though I loved her voice and her sense of rhythm, but this gives those strengths even more room to shine while eliminating the stuff I didn’t like before (the tweeness)

The second half is probably the closest we’ll ever get to New Amerykah Part 3

Yeah, this gets amazing. Basquiat is killing me; sounds like a TDE track

i was really enjoying the first half but then the second half, wow

my only complaint is 'zora' doesn't rock out quite as much in the chorus as in that live version she premiered it with

ZORA-->GIOVANNI almost sounds like a single, complex suite

I think I meant to write "Zora-->Frida" here? Anyway, having listened to this a few times now, the problem with the first half is that Sonia and Frida are the album's weakest (maybe Eartha too?). Having to get through both of them in a row slows the momentum, though Frida is fairly brief. But the first three tracks are excellent, and it's Giovanni that was playing in my head when I woke up. Plus bookending the two Bettys works superbly for hitting replay at the end.

this is really good!

great album

and she's playing TO for fifteen bucks + fees! a steal.

Oh shit this is tight

I like this album. The songs don't all stand out from each other, but it has a nice flow.

this album is even better than i thought

^^^ it is also better than I thought

It's my album of the year so far.

It took a while, namely a road trip in late July. I admire how each glimpse into one of her antecedents/muses/agonists uses a different rhythm; the album is, to quote Brian Eno, a sea of permuation.

*permutation

Playing this on a good stereo at work today really opened up how great this album is. The production is gorgeous.

It's my album of the year so far.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, September 8, 2019 9:38 AM

This, saadiq and brittany howard are right up there

we got new music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LzR2lCl8VQ

Focusing on Morrison's depiction of the relationship between Sula Peace and Nel Wright, Woods finds freedom of spirit in its text. "It's the first Toni Morisson novel I ever read and it inspired the first chapbook of poems I ever wrote," says Woods. "The novel shows the evolution of a friendship between two Black women and how they choose to navigate society's strict gender roles and rules of respectability. On Sula, Toni Morrison wrote, 'living totally by the law and surrendering totally to it without questioning anything sometimes makes it impossible to know anything about yourself.' Returning to the story several years later, it gave me permission to reject confining ideas about my identity designed to shrink my spirit. It reminded me to embrace my tenderness, my sensitivities, my ways of being in my body. This song is a mantra to allow myself space to experience my gender, love, intimacy, and sexuality on my own terms."

I'm a little surprised she's still on Jagjaguwar! nothing against them but she's got so much polish. this song is of course totally lovely.

lovely, very reminiscent of raveena

yes, this is beautiful

Nice guitar

had somehow never listened to this, but it’s wonderful.

especially loving the vibe of the Hardcover version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dW9YIsxzQU

Nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIh2FWgusMU

On her album I generally preferred the music to her singing (not that I didn't enjoy the vocals) but on that clip it's vice versa

new song, lovely as always

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPd1cB2yy4o

Lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6G9eEZtpxY

love this

so excited to have a new full-length from her

This is insanely good! ILHSM

beautiful! love the layering of the vocals

Also excited, I was wondering when she'd come back. Sounds warmer and more nimble than the previous project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qu2Aq1FusU

"Tiny Garden" is my most played song of the last month.

Wisdom. Album on preorder and very much looking forward.

Both of these are really good.

It's a fabulous album.

yeah "tiny garden" is one of the best songs of the year

Love the new album on first listen, though I've been a bit slack in keeping up with her this year and have realised that most of the tracks I really liked were released as singles beforehand.

Ooh she's touring with Kara Jackson -- definitely going to get tix

It took a couple days to adjust from the political to the romantic, but she has a talent for the extended conceit: backburners, wreckage rooms, boomerangs.

it's a good album but nothing is quite as strong as "tiny garden" and it ends up feeling a bit overly saccharine all together

Agree with that though I think "Practice" is up there and "Headfirst" is a great closer.

Alfred OTM about her dab hand with a metaphor - the whole thing also works very well as a concept album (pretty much all of it is an expansion/exploration of the basic idea expressed by "Tiny Garden").

not sure how i missed "tiny garden" when it came out, but everyone is otm about it being one of the best songs of the year. am i off base in feeling some peter gabriel vibes?

It's better than Gabriel.

Ooh she's touring with Kara Jackson -- definitely going to get tix

Hell that's a combo right there, I should check on a show around here.

It took a couple days to adjust from the political to the romantic, but she has a talent for the extended conceit: backburners, wreckage rooms, boomerangs.
― hat trick of trashiness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, October 17, 2023 4:46 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Haha, I really thought for a moment those were creative descriptions of the type of songs she's good at. And you know, it could have been. I'm really entering this album tonight and it's comfy, part spinning part coolly surveying everything that surround us. It's coherent sonically but also sizzling with ideas, in a way that reminds me of the last Sudan Archives, though more polished and less wild.

And I agree Tiny Garden is a year highlight

so is "Boomerang," particularly the counter-vocal in the chorus.

I just think lyrically she approaches a simple and overused topic, ie that four-letter-word love, with the same invigorating approach she applies to other, weightier, more complex themes on the first two albums, and atomises the subject and pulls every element apart and delivers a really thorough and humane and interior and empathetic treatise on A Relationship, where she can understand and sympathise with the junk that's making the lover behave badly and even raise a hand, while at the same time stating it is not right and it is not to be tolerated. I'm thinking particularly Send A Dove in this regard. Also, it really reminds me of Miseducation in some ways, maybe the interstitial spoken-word parts, the skits, which I don't entirely think work and would skip if I could, but do, on the first few spins at least, estabilsh some enlightening, expanding context.

^ otm

Finally saw her live. In DC at the Howard Theatre. Sadly some folks were busy chatting loud, and her voice and the way it was mic'ed and heard there wasn't always powerful enough to overcome the noise of folks who can't stop talking. I still think she's pretty good, and enjoyed her singing and her between songs talk about relationships, Sudan, Palestine

Seeing her Friday. Did Kara Jackson perform? She was on the bill when I bought the tix but now seems to have been replaced :/

No. Forgot the name of the opener. It was African sounding but she was very American folkie sounding.

Opener was Uwade.

Show was solid. She had a very welcome crowd in Chicago, which made it a great atmosphere. Unfortunately the mix was quite bad for most the night; her voice is so thin and it was barely audible at times. Meanwhile the bass drum was turned wayyyy up for some reason. Nevertheless I really enjoyed hearing the new album’s songs live. It is her most accessible and straightforward, and everything translated really well. Highlight was a cover of Paramore’s “That’s What You Get.” She also slipped into Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” at one point; can’t recall if that’s from HEAVN? She has a lovely and giving vibe and presence, talking openly about her personal growth and the lessons that inspired her writing. I was very glad she performed “I Miss All My Exes” which is one of my favorite moments on the album and maybe the best example of her unique talents.

Sounds like a similar set to DC. Drum was high in the mix here also, and they had a glass partition around the drummer (which should have been a sign to mix her vocals louder).