Jaime

Album review

Everyone likes a bit of soul and old-school funk! Successors to Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, Prince, Sly Stone et al are born every day. But more often than not, interest in the genre is lacking… In only two albums, the band Alabama Shakes have displayed an original and torrid take on southern garage funk. Their secret ingredient? Brittany Howard, the band’s singer of enormous character and gravitas. Such a sense of charisma is all-the-more present in this shock debut solo album. The record holds onto some of Alabama Shakes’ merits but also delivers a more atypical, less conventional feeling. Howard makes our heads spin with this psychedelic and trippy funk record that verges on the experimental with tracks such as the opening History Repeats with lively guitars, stumbling rhythms and chaotic vocals.
The Athens native is joined by limited backing musicians that compose of Zac Cockrell, the bassist for Alabama Shakes, and two prevalent, unique jazzmen, Robert Glasper on piano and keys and Nate Smith on drums. On top of this rich yet minimalist backdrop, Howard weaves in a study of both herself and her contemporaries. Everything is here! Homosexuality (Georgia), death (the album’s title, Jaime, is the name of her older sister who was lost to cancer at the age of 13 when Howard was only 8), religion (He Loves Me) and the racism that she, the daughter of a white mother and black father, has often encountered (Goat Head relates to the morning when her mother found all four tires of her car slashed and the severed head of a goat on the garden bench). You will be left shaken after listening to this exciting and very personal record. Howard’s values, references and influences (Prince, Curtis and Sly) are clearly heard – or so it seems – but the end result is one of great originality. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz