Flesh Tone

本人が「フューチャリスティック・ディスコ」と語る今作をバックアップするのは、ウィル・アイ・アムやボーイズ・ノイズ、デヴィッド・ゲッタなど、現アーバン・ダンス・ミュージック・シーンの立役者たち。完全にユーロ・ダンス／エレクトロ仕様の先行シングル“Acapella”をはじめ、新しいサウンドを身にまとい衝撃を与える！

レーベル移籍第1弾となる通算5枚目のオリジナル・アルバム。全てのフィールドを自由自在に飛び越えるケリスが新たに選んだパートナーはウィル・アイ・アムで、本人が「フューチャリスティック・ディスコ」と語り、ボーイズ・ノイズ、デヴィッド・ゲッタら現在のエレクトロ・シーンの頭脳が集結した新たなるケリス・ワールドが完成。

Rolling Stone (p.109) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[S]he uses escapist tracks to realist ends, exploring her recent divorce from Nas and life as a single mom. It's the classic throb of disco liberation." Entertainment Weekly (p.115) - "[The album] blends awesomely sweaty urban pop with cold Eurodisco." -- Grade: B+ Uncut (p.84) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[M]ost everything Kelis touches drips with class...Guetta and Benny Benassi have raised their game here when required to build tracks for a singer of real substance." Pitchfork (Website) - "[T]his is unadulterated house music, of the sort that's gripped continental European hedonists for almost 20 years....[With] a catalog of super-club staple sounds."

To say Kelis has been through some changes would be an understatement. Since the 2006 release Kelis Was Here, she moved from Jive to will.i.am's Interscope-affiliated vanity imprint, divorced Nas, and gave birth to a boy. Between all that, in addition to a catalog of four R&B albums that deserved greater sales, she could be forgiven for making something like a mindless dance-pop album. While Flesh Tone is a headlong dive into sleek dance-pop -- one that could have been forecast years prior, given her collaborations with Moby, Timo Maas, and Richard X, and let us never forget Diddy’s “Let’s Get Ill” -- it is much more personal than any of her past releases. “Acapella,” one of two tracks made with David Guetta, seems merely redemptive (“It’s just me surviving alone,” “Before you, my whole life was acapella”) until considering that it comes from a woman whose marriage fell through just prior to motherhood. The song that creates the album’s second greatest rush is also about parenthood; “Song for the Baby” similarly strikes as a boilerplate dancefloor love song on the surface, but once its subject sinks in, “I love you more than you’ll ever know” disarms quicker than any line from “Get Along with You” or “Rolling Through the Hood.” The remaining tracks are based in romantic relationships, but not all of them are about moving ahead. The churning “Intro” is bleak, just about hopeless (“Your force so dark, now my life feels uninspired”), yet it is just as powerful as anything else on the album. Nine songs with seven unique sets of production credits whip by in 38 minutes. The setup works because the songs are conjoined and dynamically ordered, like each collaborator knew what was required to complement the other tracks without sacrificing any distinct sonic character. Whether or not Flesh Tone remains a stylistic outlier, the disc will always be a bright standout in Kelis' discography. ~ Andy Kellman

ナズとの離婚を経て心機一転、ウィル・アイ・アムのレーベルからリリースとなる新作は奇抜でファッショナブルなフューチャー・ダンス・アルバムに。これまでにもEDM系の客演でダンス・チューンを披露することの多かった彼女だが、今回はデヴィッド・ゲッタとのエレクトロ・ハウスをはじめ、ボーイズ・ノイズやDJアモらの電脳力と合体。もっと過激でエレガントに、ディーヴァとしての本領を発揮した新生ケリスの誕生だ！
bounce (C)池田貴洋