Kelela’s sophomore effort, Raven, finds the genre-fusing artist approaching dance music in a roundabout and deliberately counterintuitive fashion. In fact, the album’s opening song, “Washed Away,” eschews pop structure almost entirely. The drum-less track is driven by the singer’s vocal trills and gentle scatting with few discernable lyrics to speak of.
Most of the remainder of the album is stacked with breakbeats and even some resounding bass hits, with production assistance on five tracks from LSDXOXO. Kelela maintains a conflicted, frictional energy throughout, especially on the more club-minded cuts. Her stunning vocals frequently drag and drift, with sentences drawn out over multiple stanzas, paying no mind to when the verse is technically over. The effect, rather than undercutting the impact or momentum of the music, registers as a statement of purpose.
Raven is about many things, but one of its principle themes is the push and pull between a search for intimacy with another person and recognizing one’s loneliness, which is delicately explored on tracks like “On the Run” and “Contact.” Kelela excels at capturing both the swirl of thoughts inside one’s head and the come-ons that we use to entice others into our world.
The metaphor at the heart of Raven, which was born out of a sense of isolation and alienation, is about healing and learning to trust one’s body and mind again—“a raven reborn,” as Kelela says on the title track. These themes dovetail with the album’s form and instrumentation, as this is a physical-sounding effort that nonetheless undercuts its kinetic energy with yearning, unhurried vocals and internalized sentiments about love and longing.
Like “Washed Away,” “Raven” initially unfolds with just vocals and two alternating synth notes. But as Kelela sings of experiencing hardship and “labor,” the track explodes with a massive techno beat. Similarly, a plaintive guitar loop counteracts the hyper breakbeats on “Missed Call” as the singer wonders, “Do I want to love again?” The juxtaposition between her vulnerable ruminations and the track’s hard-edged beats makes for a striking contrast.
The songwriting throughout the album is as knotty and complex as the songs are rhythmically dense. On the shifty “Enough for Love,” Kelela asks a partner if they’re “tough enough for love,” underscoring the occasionally grueling demands of giving yourself over to a relationship. Elsewhere, the hypnotic, midtempo shuffle and wistful synths of “On the Run” are complemented by lyrics about chasing the affections of a would-be paramour.
The album’s moodier, more meditative tracks, like “Sorbet,” are better suited for the bedroom than the dance floor, but they aren’t songs to fuck to as much as they are soundtracks for lazily sprawling out in the sheets. No matter the tempo or setting, though, Raven is fully aware of how the body can both entrap and liberate. It’s an innovative use of music as a vessel to capture both.
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