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Review by Jazz Monroe Associate Staff Writer at Pitchfork AUGUST 2 2016
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REVIEW
At 54 minutes, the 18-track record begins to feel a little baggy, its uncharismatic drums and textural familiarity giving Nao’s paragliding voice one job too many. Even when overlong, though, the songs can impress with their breadth: “Blue Wine,” a moment of cosmic relief, winds down to slow-jam tempo, but blossoms into something exquisitely languid and sprawling, a distant cousin to Janelle Monáe’s elaborations on R&B balladry. Again, on “Blue Wine,” the music feels emotionally descriptive without the need for disclosure —“broken emotions” are the narrator’s ailment, we’re told. But when vagueness is a catalyst, rather than a stand-in for passion, its evasive profundity teaches you to look for what’s missing.
e h t s’ t i t a h t w o n k , e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I d o o l b d a b , d a b e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I e so oh c I l l a f o t t o n n i a r e h t r oF u oy n o n u s eh t g n i so p xE e so l I w o n k I , o o k c u c m’ I e m l l e t t’ n o D h o , e s o l c e r e w e w , d a m s’ t i d n A e so oh c I t a o l f a w o n s’ d a e h y M u o y f o e s l u p g n i n w o r d s’ t r a e h y m t u B e so l I o o c - o o c m’ I e m l l e t t’ n o D hoo-hoo-ooc-ooc-ooc-ooc-ooc-ooC e h t s’ t i t a h t w o n k , e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I d o o l b d a b , d a b e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I e h t s’ t i t a h t w o n k , e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I d o o l b d a b , d a b e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I e h t s’ t i t a h t w o n k , e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I d o o l b d a b , d a b e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I e h t s’ t i t a h t w o n k , e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I d a b , d a b e h t s’ t i g n i k n i h t m ’ I
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On For All We Know, Nao autopsies various relationships—with friends, lovers, outgrown versions of herself—and, having decided what went wrong, calmly takes down the perpetrators. She sings with the weight of lessons learned: “I’m wise and I’m older,” a line from “Fool to Love,” is a rare instance of personal exposition, but the sentiment was already implied. On “In the Morning,” she acts the part of a lover too polite to say it’s over. “Buried all my feelings, I’m withholding,” she sings,
REVIEW
There are few surprises in the music, but its crisp bombast complements the vocals, playing abrasive beats against silky seduction. Nao is unafraid to fall back on shmoozy late -’90s R&B melodies, allowing snarling, maximalist synths to drag the songs into 2016. “Get to Know Ya,” produced by Jungle, opens the record with elastic funk guitars and imploring, melismatic melodies, before the GRADES-produced “Inhale Exhale” bounces it up a notch with a raunchy bass strut that melts away as melodies zipwire across octaves. The music speaks in wonky Soulquarian grooves, playing into Nao’s jazz-vocal schooling: Album highlight “Feels Like (Perfume),” a Royce Wood Junior-produced ballad, ventilates D’Angelo’s polluted soul with sultry boudoir vibes and an improbably perfect George Harrison-style chorus.
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In the absence of lyrical biography, Nao’s hook is her voice —she sings like a giddy angel sent to live out a dream of pop stardom—which puts her out of step with recent R&B permutations cultivated in England. Where others have found transcendence by rejecting slinky, summertime beats—FKA twigs’ alien ambiguity, Grace Acladna’s lucid soul nightmares, Night Slugs’ scatty dream-grime production for Kelela—Nao, while raised on grime and garage, owes little to any discernible London lineage. Her view of modern love, delivered in a tone that oscillates between euphoria and self-examination, feels like a rebuff to digital-era romance, where the possibilities of perma-communication (the mute, the de -friend, the ghosting) have fostered a banal revolution in breakup politics. Instead, her music inhabits the arena of high-stakes R&B, where women’s voices are dominant, acrobatic, and impossible for unsympathetic listeners to tune out.
Nao’s beseeching tones imbue every line with romantic defiance, even when, as on breakout single “Bad Blood,” the lost love under her microscope is platonic. On that song’s chorus, she accompanies an armada of synth blasts with heaving sighs, as if to hack up the offending memories—“a past that couldn’t last”—from her lungs, as well as her mind. These aren’t the shallow resolutions of a woman destined to repeat her mistakes.
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fretfully. “I tried to leave him signs ... Are they hard to recognize?” Following track “ Trophy,” a new A.K. Paul collaboration, reboots the theme of romantic redemption, firing out a feminist takedown in the dialect of funk expressionism.
ince penning her first song in 2013, Nao has come close to mastering a particular strand of funky, high-gloss R&B. Her A.K. Paul-featuring debut single, “So Good,” arrived within months of that first songwriting attempt, creating her template for emotionally precise pop that gives away little about its creator. Her empire has expanded—after the single, she formed Little Tokyo Recordings to release a handful of EPs—as has her songwriting. Recent single “Fool to Love,” which appears on her debut album For All We Know, opens at the flash point of a doomed relationship, then takes us back through the “mindless games” and slain insecurities that helped forge her escape. The details are vague —it’s possible the tormentor is her own self-doubt—but the sense of an inspired, forcible overcoming is unmistakeable.
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For All You’re a holiday A glass of ocean slipping down my throat And landed on my hopes, I’m dreaming Of f the maps no hidden grids, I’m fleeing I worship you like holy days Lying on my back , seeing clouds and rays Drinking lime and bit ter from my lemonade White horses, maritime won ’t do Do you remember? The holiday slipped away Time and place I definitely remember Lying on my back and seeing clouds and rays We ’re dreaming The feelings rule Forever we ’re young Pages unsung , ooh I feel that you remember Dreaming of a past that couldn ’t last But now we ’re changing Refraining I’m thinking it’s the , know that it’s the I’m thinking it’s the bad, bad blood I’m thinking it’s the , know that it’s the I’m thinking it’s the bad, bad Blood Oh Do you remember? The riding , the passion, the falling over And tripping on ice Sharing advice , taking it t wice But let us not forget the Silent day, stripped away Time and place Oh , you choose not to remember Fly away, counting days I’m hiding from you, ooh I’m thinking it’s the , know that it’s the I’m thinking it’s the bad, bad blood I’m thinking it’s the , know that it’s the I’m thinking it’s the bad, bad blood I choose For the rain not to fall Exposing the sun on you I lose Don ’t tell me I’m cuckoo, I know And it’s mad, we were close , oh I choose My head’s now afloat But my hear t’s drowning pulse of you I lose Don ’t tell me I’m coo-coo Coo-coo-coo-coo-coo-coo-ooh-ooh I’m thinking it’s the , know that it’s the I’m thinking it’s the bad, bad blood I’m thinking it’s the , know that it’s the I’m thinking it’s the bad, bad blood I’m thinking it’s the , know that it’s the I’m thinking it’s the bad, bad blood I’m thinking it’s the , know that it’s the I’m thinking it’s the bad, bad
Songwriters: Neo Jessica Joshua / Daniel Traynor Bad Blood lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
For All We Know (song list)
Intro (Like Velvet) Get to Know Ya Inhale Exhale Voice Memo 161 Happy Voice Memo 162 Adore You In the Morning Trophy Bad Blood DYMW We Don’t Give A Give Me a Little Fool to Love Voice Memo 4 (Say Yes) Blue Wine Girlfriend Feels Like
Risley Cline Summer 2017 DESMA 25
Instructor: Amanda Stojanov UCLA Design | Media Arts