- Georgia Anne Muldrow’s new long-player Overload on iconic LA label Brainfeeder opens with defiantly spiritual-jazz vibes, all polyrhythmic pulsing and choral shouts. It sets the tone for a record that is ambitious in its scope and stylings.
Play It Up moves us into dark, heavy, minimal hiphop, illbient broken-beat, laden with noisy crash cymbals, showing it's a Brainfeeder record upfront. It's heavier and more pensive than her earlier outings on Stones Throw.
The title cut heads into more recognisable territory with a bubbling, jazzy, classic rhodes-keyboard sound, hooky vocals dripping with soulful summer-love r’n’b flavour. Although the LA-beat scene spotters will note that the drum-programming is still edgier, rougher, more chopped up and noisier, giving the overall sound a real grit that keeps it from spilling into overly-smooth.
Blam keeps the theme going: gritty beat-driven production underpinning the bulletproof glide of Muldrow's signature multi-layered vocals. Aerosol brings a toothy wonk-bassline to a thumbnail sketch of Georgia walking her neighbourhood on a similarly summer-sounding afternoon, capturing the laidback vibes of her native L.A. so well you can see the heat haze shimmer as you listen.
The elements we've come to expect from Muldrow are all here: strong jazz roots expressed through a neo-soul idiom, visual lyrical imagery in a choral polyphony, super-slick r'n'b production elements but with just enough of the gloss sandpapered off to make it feel pleasingly raw. It's not all serious though, duet with long-term collaborator and significant-other Dudley Perkins is a silly little ditty about how much they like each other, a cheesy swing beat with cheeky half-sung vocals that sound more like couples teasing each other that an actual performance. Canadian Hillbilly is -inexplicably given its title- a moving and smooth future-r'n'b love ballad with booming 808s and a thick, warm FM-bassline. A rare moment of straight-down-the-line soul that could easily be an instant classic. Closing track Bobbie’s Dittie is a flashy, jazz-breakbeat workout, a final statement of serious craft, and an intent to keep pushing the edges of her art.
Brainfeeder feels like the right home for this record, striking the right blend of honey and crunch. Overall Overload is a confident statement, showing an artist at the height of her powers and not slowing down.
- Kieran Ruffles.