By John Hill
To have a well-rounded musical palette, you need more than
shiny pop songs and thumping dance beats. Whether it’s a drive through the
mountains or simply chilling at home, there is a need for more laid-back music
that helps stir your soul or lift the burdens of the daily grind. Fortunately,
two new releases from UK acts The xx and Jessie Ware are set to fill that void
as we shift in to an autumnal mode.
What is the sound of The xx? To say it is indie pop does not
do it justice, because it is fairly unique in a marketplace filled with
grinding chords and driving drum and bass lines. The trio, consisting of
vocalists Oliver Sim and Romy Madley-Croft and producer Jamie Smith, offer a
stripped-down sound that is both expansive and minimal all at the same time.
While guitar licks propel many of their songs, the vocal duo of Sim and Madley-Croft
add emotional complexity to each track they appear on. Check out Madley-Croft’s
heartfelt delivery of “Angels,” their first single off of Coexist as performed on Conan.
The amazing thing for me is that the way they sound on that
live clip is exactly how they sound on record. While opening track “Angels” may
not reflect it, Jamie Smith stated early on that Coexist would be influenced by club music. “Chained” sounds like a
sleeker version of music Everything but the Girl released in their Walking Wounded era with the added bonus
of both male and female vocals, but it is not all driven by beats. In fact, the
first half of “Reunion” is propelled not by guitars or a drum machine, but
rather a steel drum. However, the heart of Coexist
lays in “Sunset,” an all-too-familiar tale of ex-lovers who see each other on
the street but don’t acknowledge each other’s existence. When Madley-Croft’s
and Sim’s voices entwine at the end, the sadness of knowing they both wish
things were different is palpable.
Occasionally I find myself longing for the days of Soul II Soul, Lisa Stansfield and Sade ruling the Pop and R&B charts with a mixture of strong vocals, laid-back vibes and unexpected beats. While Sade pre-dated those other acts by a few years, all three acts helped redefine pop upon their releases with songs that were inherently soulful but with a pop sensibility that allowed them to reach a wider audience. Fast forward 20 plus years, and English vocalist Jessie Ware and producer Dave Okumu are bringing a similar albeit updated sound to the masses via Ware’s debut disc Devotion.
Devotion kicks off
with its title track, which harkens back to the classic collaboration of
Massive Attack and Tracey Thorn (of Everything but the Girl fame) on
“Protection,” mixing a strong, distinct female vocal with a pulsating
electronic track. From there, the record flows through a stream of soul, pop
and trip hop beats that provide something for any mood. From the anthemic
“Wildest Moments” to the sensual Sade-esque “Running,” Devotion delivers a sonically diverse album without losing track of
the powerful vocalist that the tracks were created to showcase. Highlight track
“Taking In Water” is a power ballad fitting of a woman whose voice cannot be
confined to one genre, and closer “Something Inside” floats off toward the
horizon, hopefully leading to Ware’s next set of musical journeys. In a
business where music is written for a hook first and a vocalist somewhere
further down the list, the combo of Okumu’s production and Ware’s voice are
equally matched in brilliance.
While his full-time job is in education, John Hill also writes a successful music blog titled Pop Music Notes. He is also active on Twitter @popmusicnotes and lives in Denver with his partners in crime James and Bruiser.
