release date: Mar. 4, 2016
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,92]
producer: Esperanza Spalding and Tony Visconti
label: Concord Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Good Lava" - 2. "Unconditional Love" (3,5 / 5) - 4. "Earth to Heaven"
5th studio album by Spalding now with legendary (Bowie-)producer Tony Visconti. Emily is Spalding's middle name, and the album is according to herself about going in the right direction. Well, she really experiments with influences on this one, which is hard to categorize in terms of specific style. It's 'fusion' no doubt about that, but it's not really jazz, although, several tracks have plenty of jazz-feel. It's also art pop and jazz rock build on r&b and funk. The first track "Good Lava" and "Earth to Heaven" both sounds inspired by St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) without too much jazz being more straight-forward, pointing to art rock, but that's not the impression throughout an album, I find staggering forward without a navigator. "One" is more like Kate Bush / Tori Amos with its low and high-pitched vocal performance. The album has it moments, surely, Spalding has a fine and warm vocal, but the music does not really unfold.
[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]
