Anjulie debut-album review (Nu-Soul)

Anjulie goes boom!

By Marcus Scott

Nu-Soul Magazine

November 20, 2009

Honeycomb-churning contralto-voiced sugar pop chanteuse Anjulie is a harmonious idiosyncrasy to say the least, and with her eponymous debut, she’s got the moxie to be the reigning US Hot Dance Club Play princess. On first listen, this Great White Northern answer to Santigold and Regina Spektor turns a melting pot of sound into a cultural mosaic. From Tango, dark wave bossa nova, world rhythms, hip-hop soul, ‘70s era Philly soul-disco to acid jazz flourishes, contagious neo-soul half-scats, Morricone-esque superfluities, and Sunnyside-up acoustic guitar riffs—Anjulie shows that she is slowly putting her stamp on popular music. With “Rain” and “Addicted2Me” having both been featured on MTV’s famous-for-being-famous mainstay scripted-reality broadcasts “The Hills” and “The City,” this funky mademoiselle is getting eyed by the cool kids.

First single “Boom,” sounds like a 60s Nancy Sinatra-esque vibe that could easily have been a staple on the Kill Bill soundtrack had it debuted a few years prior. Its pseudo-James Bond guitar flare, cabaret sass shimmering in the horns and fire-eater big band sound on the backbeat creates a magic that screams A-list Avalon. “Boom,” a rather haunting stalker-in-the-shadows foxtrot bathtub-surrounded-with-candles serenade, is a finger-snapping fiesta that, upon first listen, sounds like an alien musical oddity on the rise. Anjulie’s daringly dark timbre and use of restraint forces the listener to tune in and sway to the intercontinental rhythms and with the rotation of her video—a Salvador Dali Alice in Wonderland panache—the listener is drawn into a parallel universe of the extraterrestrial…something we haven’t seen in a jazz artist since Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock record.

“Rain,” a sexy recall of the late-90s millennium bubblegum Bad Boy R&B sound pioneered by Blackstreet, TLC and P!nk’s debut that instantly transforms Anjulie from a fizzy-mystic soul chorus girl to urban café torch singer. The stormy weather synth orchestra drum thunderclap backing intro that jumps into a simple acoustic guitar hip-hop melody is refreshing, and with a resemblance to The Score’s “Ready or Not” by rap supergroup The Fugees and a sound that almost rehashes Craig David’s “Walking Away”. Maybe Anjule is on her way to making a name for herself in a time where music is being dominated by glitzy-shiny Lady Gaga and sugary spectacle-stealing Britney Spears upstarts.

From Oaksville, a suburb of Toronto, the young songbird interned at the Metalworks recording studio at 17, where she met Jon Levine, keyboardist of the Canadian R&B hit-makers Philosopher Kings. Born to Guyanese immigrants, this boom box blasting lovechild of Nelly Furtado of Corinne Bailey Rae is a well-read versifier to say the least. The computer pro tools steroid-juiced “Some Dumb Girl,” with her sassy and girlish coos and the 80s Japanese synthpop atmospheric liquid breathing jazz backing, sounds more like a movie soundtrack than a confession of infidelity…and arguably, that is its charm. Unlike her peers, who have out more radio-friendly tunes, Anjulie’s melancholy and chill resonance places her audience in a world best explored lying in a bed reading a book or while the listener is on the road at 4 o’clock in the morning driving on cruise control as the sun begins to rise. Her lyrics, so in tune with rudimentary human emotion, is written in generalities—which can to some critics be an excuse to rid oneself of having to show any “real talent”—but it works because her solid delivery can be understood because everyone understands them. Written as if in conversation, on “Some Dumb Girl,” Anjulie makes a pious protest and she speaks volumes. She follows this up with the psychedelic R&B showstopper made-for-primetime-series-finale “Addicted2Me.” The feisty two-step club-grinder, with its distorted vocal backing and it’s sweat-dripping baseline, she declares “Nobody gotta love like mine,” with a popped-blister vocal roar. Anjulie rips her lover a new one with her confident refrain, and with moxie she is a brazen beauty on the prowl with statements like “’Til your addicted to me like the sand to the sea/And everything that you see is a vision of me/Your addicted to me like a fatal disease/Until your love for me is a love like me.”
The album is a stunning debut from an artist, be it that most won’t appreciate it because of the mellow tinge of the record, but what Anjulie does is create a nexus between genres and kicks down the walls of sound that we segregate in music stores. For Anjulie can’t be boxed in. Listen to “Same Damn Thing,” whose folk rock lyric style sounds like an early Sheryl Crow effort and whose melody sounds like a Vitamin C / Ace of Base amalgamation, with its hotter-than-July 60s-beach-party sound and Anjulie’s saccharine alto. Clearly, Anjulie—still an unknown—could be one of the best talents to come out of the last half of first decade of the 21st century with her soulful blend of sistah-girl swagger and Lolita debutante darling decadence. Probably one of the most dismissed albums this year, this sexy vamp is an artist on the rise.

Check it out: http://blog.nu-soulmag.com/?p=1409

The Noisettes' "Wild Young Hearts Review" (Nu-Soul)

Shingai and The Boys bring in 'da Noise and bring in 'da Funk
By Marcus Scott
Nu-Soul Magazine
November 20,2009

When two punk-rock London rude boys met a bluesy-soul songstress with a halo of hair with ribbons of frayed and frazzled afro curls, magic was made, and their debut “What’s The Time, Mr. Wolf?” went on to become an underground glow stick-waving party starter. After guitarist Daniel Smith and percussionist Jamie Morrison tapped the shoulder of Zimbabwean temper-tantum Veruca Salt sex kitten Shingai Shoniwa to create a purple flamed mushroom cloud sound that fuses No Doubt, Bow Wow Wow and Sade—they took the London anti-establishment subterranean by storm. And for a while, there were paper wars between them and New York bar-divers The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and no one could make up their minds. Both bands had chicks with enough moxie to spare: emotional-cutter Karen would crowdsurf as if attempting suicide on stage and Shingai would dart off a nightclub floor like a beer pong ball from hell—and both have killer fashion senses. Eventually, Karen O and her boys went on to make electro-synth dance records—and the Noisettes elected to create this excellent sophomore effort, Wild Young Hearts, a riveting new wave neo-soul punk-rock record that shimmers and shines like electric silk.

This critic had the chance to see these lovely musical droogs in a club in SoHo, promoting a listing of what would become this record not long ago, and noticed that the young American’s who were in attendance liked what they had to say, as hundreds slicked through the bouncer-guarded velvet roped doors like liquid jellyfishes. Why are they such hot shots you wonder? Upon releasing their first record, they were called “The Band to Watch” by magazines such as Nylon and Rolling Stone, with Spin magazine detailing the band’s rich rave-gala live performances as an eccentrically sublime experience in modern times. With a girl group duo backing singer Shingai, a clash-of-titans bazaar of sound drifting Jamie’s LSD-epileptic drumming style and Daniel’s fever pitch ozone-destroying guitar blazing, they are a band on the rise, achieving an eclectic fan base of zeitgeist trendsetters and blitzed literati cool kids. With their fête lifestyle, they opened this record like they opened that magical show in NYC, with the radio-friendly and happy-go-lucky “Wild Young Hearts”—a jovial, punky-funk handclapping anthem made for the Y2K iPhone generation sweethearts. It’s memorably luscious La-la-la-la intro and show stopping chorus clap break make for a great time especially in a time where fans driven by surf-rock Disney pop tart tunes could also join in. Shingai’s solid delivery and charismatic summer-love-gone-awry anecdote is one guaranteed to get the party started with its take no prisoners swing-and-sway melody.

The band did their best to create an all-out welcoming burlesque dance record with the over-the-top electro dance two-step club romper, “Don’t Upset The Rhythm”—an 80s Talking Heads-esque cardboard break-dance number. With the sleek keyboard scales and violin trimmings, its jump-on-the-bed backbeat creates a stark and stir-crazy frantic frenzy feel made as if for an awesome hand-to-hand spy-verses-spy mortal combat action flick sequence. With its new wave Miami Vice credit icebreaker, its synth jingle melody, and the smoky-voiced girl choir mosh pit echo, the band burns down the house with a song that is easily one of the perfect drink-in-hand club bangers of the year.
The track that best describes the record is the sexy, moonlighting “Never Forget You”—the 60s girl group tinged tune perfect for the slow dancing couple’s only teenybopper prom night, as sparks fly across the gymnasium floors with the song’s brilliant orchestral flourishes and Shingai’s raspy gospel-metal mezzo-soprano wail and its star-crossed love-affair-gone-wrong lyrics. Sweet on the ear, this Chess Records rip-off sounds like a re-mastered novelty air loom lost in storage files from years ago, a sound that works well among its peers. The bass thud and the string arrangement souring over Shingai’s sticky-and-sweet flypaper vocal acrobatics and Daniel’s guitar sunshine-and-roses guitar loops, without any reservations, is a perfect summer fling soundtrack.

There is always a song that is a record stand out, and it happens to be the lighter-waving “Atticus”—possibly the best song in the career of the rebellious rock trio, and one of the best on this set list. This may become a staple for the closing of all of the shows. The signature guitar riff, the drumming embellishments of ballroom jazz and the faint sounds of bass in the backing…? This beautiful unassisted confession is sung, almost as if just above a whisper, discussing the singer’s empathetic desire for self-destruction, is probably the most personal and above all, the most important. To be frank, it’s a stand-out blues record that is dying to have its 15 minutes on MTV’s Unplugged. Taking clip notes from the famous Harper Lee “To Kill A Mockingbird” novel, this brooding dim-the-lights tribal-esque folksy guitar blues number about breaking barriers despite the repercussions, is a rebel song in many ways and also a bare bones lover’s quarrel R&B single. With the vocal spirit of Billie Holiday and the riot grrl war cry of Gwen Stefani, Shingai’s stifling vibrato fused with Jamie’s windblown drum sound creates a haunting but radiant work of art, especially with Daniel’s string-plucking appearing to mimic the sound of a bird’s wings snapping in succession.

With not-so-easy-to-brush-off-as-filler tunes like “Saturday Night” and “24 Hours,” the album works to create a sound that their peers aren’t making, like the neo-soul garage rock candle-lit philharmonic concert single “Every Now and Then.” Road mapping their adventures in this epic rags to riches tall-tale, written as if on post-it note or Twitter update, in the vein of Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy,” or the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Tell Me Baby”—this is a song written for fans and new fans alike, and what a treat it is, with its glorious anthem rock quality. These young artistes use great restraint, easily opting not to go the route of big-time gospel choir epic and playing it down with Shingai’s superior motto-vibrato melisma and distorted howls.

One of the best records of the year by one of the loudest bands in the world the Noisettes are sure to be the next apex in rock music…because, like all greats, they speak volumes.

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