
Finding comfort in picking apart every note his voice hits, every beat the drum makes and the way the bass follows along in counterpart with the guitar, there’s still that warm nostalgic feeling coming across the album. It’s just another hit to add to the collection. —Elena Ruiz
On the way to the Apple Festival at the bottom of the Sierra mountains, I can remember D’Angelo’s voice filling the background of family conversation. Being very young at the time and more interested in Radio Disney, I could never tell him apart from Maxwell, but still enjoyed his voice as much as I did Maxwell’s. D’Angelo will forever hold a place in my family childhood music memories along with Tony! Toni! Toné!, Jill scott, India Arie, and Maxwell of course. Yet as I got older and started to discover other artists than what my grandma played and Hannah Montana, I progressed into jazz and funk style music. Really exploring with my music taste and always searching for new tunes. Hearing that D’Angelo had a new album immediately triggered a nostalgic ringing to my ears, and being a music artist myself, I was thirsty to hear some new sounds, something different, but music that still had an old feeling, like most authentic music does.
The first song I played from D’Angelo’s new Album, Black Messiah, was “Really love.” The sounds of the strings drew me in like the intro to an old black and white film. When the soft mumbles of a Spanish women began to slowly linger into the headphones, I closed my eyes and imagined I was in Spain sitting at a cafe along a narrow street. It was hot like the coffee on the table. The sun peered through the tall buildings. It was sort of barren, which could symbolize the absence of D’Angelo for the past couple of years, but it gave off a warm feeling, like seeing an old friend. A gust of wind crept up just as D’Angelo’s voice did and quickly I became enraptured in the switch from strums of classical guitar to a funky break down with prominent a bass line.
The second song I listened to was, “Till It’s Done (Tutu).” The rumble of the drums mangled my heart into a throbbing piece of clay, molding with the vibration. It sculpted a soul driven sista sleeping in a butterfly cocoon, hair nappy and voice raspy with a taste for honey dripping from a beehive. Funk and flow followed her footsteps, the song was her forte, music playing fortissimo. Forget forever she’s living in the moment. Basking in the sweet feeling the guitar illuminates within her she’s living in a fantasy, got fairy wings on her back. The sound is liberating she feels like she can fly. The sound is liberating, I felt like I could fly.
Before I knew it I was going through the whole album, each song painting a new picture, each guitar riff would pull me further into another dimension. I was freely diving into a pool of the sensations the tracks kept drowning me in. If you’ve seen any of the Tame Impala music videos it’s sort of like that. It’s something you don’t fully understand (especially since D’Angelo’s words sort of melt into the background band), but that you can’t stop watching (or in this case listening), experiencing every part over and over until you come up with your own satisfactory conclusion.
The album is full of jazzy R&B breakdowns causing you to focus more on the instruments than the high muffled noises of D’Angelo’s voice. Which, being in a band, I can appreciate a lot, since musicianship is not an easy thing to succeed at. I can also strongly appreciate the fact that D’Angelo has come out with an amazing album that I can fully enjoy now at 16 instead of 9 years of age, and that great musicians and artists still exist in this world. Finding comfort in picking apart every note his voice hits, every beat the drum makes and the way the bass follows along in counterpart with the guitar, there’s still that warm nostalgic feeling coming across the album. It’s just another hit to add to the collection
The first song I played from D’Angelo’s new Album, Black Messiah, was “Really love.” The sounds of the strings drew me in like the intro to an old black and white film. When the soft mumbles of a Spanish women began to slowly linger into the headphones, I closed my eyes and imagined I was in Spain sitting at a cafe along a narrow street. It was hot like the coffee on the table. The sun peered through the tall buildings. It was sort of barren, which could symbolize the absence of D’Angelo for the past couple of years, but it gave off a warm feeling, like seeing an old friend. A gust of wind crept up just as D’Angelo’s voice did and quickly I became enraptured in the switch from strums of classical guitar to a funky break down with prominent a bass line.
The second song I listened to was, “Till It’s Done (Tutu).” The rumble of the drums mangled my heart into a throbbing piece of clay, molding with the vibration. It sculpted a soul driven sista sleeping in a butterfly cocoon, hair nappy and voice raspy with a taste for honey dripping from a beehive. Funk and flow followed her footsteps, the song was her forte, music playing fortissimo. Forget forever she’s living in the moment. Basking in the sweet feeling the guitar illuminates within her she’s living in a fantasy, got fairy wings on her back. The sound is liberating she feels like she can fly. The sound is liberating, I felt like I could fly.
Before I knew it I was going through the whole album, each song painting a new picture, each guitar riff would pull me further into another dimension. I was freely diving into a pool of the sensations the tracks kept drowning me in. If you’ve seen any of the Tame Impala music videos it’s sort of like that. It’s something you don’t fully understand (especially since D’Angelo’s words sort of melt into the background band), but that you can’t stop watching (or in this case listening), experiencing every part over and over until you come up with your own satisfactory conclusion.
The album is full of jazzy R&B breakdowns causing you to focus more on the instruments than the high muffled noises of D’Angelo’s voice. Which, being in a band, I can appreciate a lot, since musicianship is not an easy thing to succeed at. I can also strongly appreciate the fact that D’Angelo has come out with an amazing album that I can fully enjoy now at 16 instead of 9 years of age, and that great musicians and artists still exist in this world. Finding comfort in picking apart every note his voice hits, every beat the drum makes and the way the bass follows along in counterpart with the guitar, there’s still that warm nostalgic feeling coming across the album. It’s just another hit to add to the collection