The Real Music

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“Why do we kill each other, when we’re all the same?” Have wiser words ever been spoken? Have we ever needed these words more so than now? There is pain and strife in the world, there are places where the dregs of humanity accumulate, where they multiply and become their own beings. The hatred in this world has become prolific in itself; these places are in front of your face at all times. They’re in the news, in the police helicopters flying over your home early in the morning, in the houses wherein abuse lies; they bring us down. 

Georgia Anne Muldrow, uses words, she uses music, she uses her mind and soul in a valiant attempt to eradicate these problems. There has always been wisdom in words, and is that not the point, to impart knowledge and truth? Muldrow instils a grace and a desire, a desire to change yourself and the world. She plants a mustard seed in your mind, and it grows into hope and change. Seeds, is an evocative, innovative, and essential album.  A release which fortifies the new soul era, let all who have said this genre is dead, listen upon it and weep. 

Muldrow's voice is intense; she displays a dexterity I’ve yet to see from anybody, the passion behind her flows from  a spring, which will one day become a deluge. It’s distinct and demands you to submit, and the evidence is clear in the title track. She brings the pain with a J.J. Johnson like string section, you can taste the 70’s resonance, and once I heard this groove I already knew I’d fallen in love.Tune after tune she keeps bringing the pain, ‘Kali Yuga’ gives us a deftly subtle James Brown riff, and her softly seductive vocals are simply enticing. Muldrow is sassy and descriptive, and hell is she sublime.

The quality, the hurt, the highlight comes with the "Husfriend" duology,  "Intro" is so much like Macy Gray and Jill Scott, it's unbelievable. The  hit back to reggae is just brilliant, but her voice just claims it, the syncopation and harmonies, the backings and comps, it’s a perfect piece of composition."Husfriend" itself boasts one of the sexiest bass grooves I’ve heard this year, the backup vocals could have been written by George Clinton himself, this is quite possibly my 2012 song, or maybe my 2012 album.

It’s ridiculously difficult to meld so many genres of music together, but here we have it, an expertly executed fusion of soul, funk, hop-hop, and R'n'B , from the old and the new, it incorporates vigorous bass-lines, sensually syncopated rhythms, you can hear the melding of ages, Betty Davis, James Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, Jill Scott, or Macy Gray. This album is like a Chinese tea, infused with love, fear, determination  and yes, hate, for we will always need to hate the wrong in order to challenge and change it. This album is in my life, it should be in yours.