Babble

Idioma disponible: inglés

New York-based singer Kendra Morris, initially tagged as part of the retro soul bag, soon discovered that songwriting—in addition to her voice, which can turn pleading and breathy or cool and tough with equal intensity—was the key to animating her powerful vision. Since her first two albums, Banshee (2012) and the all-covers set, Mockingbird (2013), Morris and longtime collaborator Jeremy Page have fashioned their own original musical world, one directly inspired by late '60s psychedelia and the '70s funk and soul. Here Morris reaches back to her excellent 2016 EP Babble, which, supplemented with three new songs, is being re-released as a full-length album. Set to a crisp, spry, plucked strings-and-organ fantasy, the super catchy single "Twist & Burn'' gives Morris a compelling setting for her upbeat sultriness, teasing out lines like "No name faces just the two of us/ holiday forever just living off this buzz." She follows that with the buzzy guitar effect and rhythmic sway of "Woman," where she fears and resents her real and imaginary rivals asking, "Why there always gotta be that woman" adding, "My boyfriend he tries not to stare/ But when poison spills it finds a way/ Into the stream and take you down slowly." On this layered, overdubbed recording built at Future Junk in New York City, Morris is backed by the limber rhythm section of keyboardist Colin Browne, bassist Jeremy Siegel and drummer Sam Merrick. Against strings and a wordless vocal chorus, Morris evokes a certain mysterious slinkiness—another of her moody personas—on "Wizards Float." Her imagination drifts to a world where she is "brighter, stronger, more beautiful by far." Opening with a ringing telephone and deep, menacing bass funk groove, new song "Dial Back" has a classic soul thump and a pulsing self call-and-response where she asks, "When do I start easin'?/ Quittin' all this pleasin'/ Just looking/ For a reason." Time and again on Babble, whose re-release should give it the acclaim it always deserved, Morris turns the lyrics towards the universal, talking about more than herself and her doubts and desires. She's successfully fused hip and hard to soft and vulnerable to build a rising music career.  © Robert Baird/Qobuz