Take Off from Mercy

ソウル、R&B、ヒップホップ、サイケ、エレクトロニック、エクスぺリメンタルを漂流する逸材

サウスカロライナを拠点に活動、STONES THROWのMNDSGN、TORO Y MOI、KEIYAAらのサポートをはじめ、ミュージシャン / コンポーザー / 映画、ラジオ・プログラマーとしても活動するKHARI LUCAS によるプロジェクトCONTOURがMEXICAN SUMMERからのデビュー作『TAKE OFF FROM MERCY』をリリース。

『ONWARDS』(2022年、TOUCHING BASS)、『LOVE SUITE』(2021年、GOOD QUESTION)、『WEIGHT』(2021年、自主制作/PURPLE TAPE PEDIGREE)と先鋭的なレーベルからのリリース、ノワール調の実験的R&BやStrawberry Switchbladeのカヴァーで自身の音楽性を拡張し続けてきた逸材。これまで多用してきたサンプリングを廃し、真っ向からソングライティングへ向き合っており、これまでのソウル、R&B、ジャズ、アンビエント、実験音楽と言った要素にブルース、トロピカリア、ヒップホップ、ポスト・パンク、インディーロックを付与したアーティストとしての進化をビシビシと感じさせる内容!CKTRLや、KLEIN、初期YVES TUMORに通ずる魅力を持った素晴らしい仕上がりとなっています。

Khari "Contour" Lucas fascinating path has been marked by the respected artists and labels with whom the Charleston-based musician has worked -- from Niecy Blues, Loraine James, and Omari Jazz, to Touching Bass, RVNG Intl., and Nonesuch. It heads in another direction on Take Off from Mercy, a Mexican Summer release that could be called the second full-length Contour recording. The follow-up to the investigative and collage-like Onwards!, it also trailed Reflections, Vol. 2: Black Decelerant, a hybrid ambient/jazz offering from Lucas and Omari Jazz, and ROBESOИ, on which Lucas and pianist John Bitoy joined operatic bass-baritone singer Davone Tines. While this too is collaborative, assisted by Omari Jazz, Mndsgn, Salami Rose Joe Louis, and Saul Williams, it is intensely intimate and starker in relation to Onwards! The qualities are apparent from the opening moment, where Lucas makes a plaintive demand, just barely audible, amid entangled bass and guitar lines. Hes in a desperate, stupefied state, unable to remain upright. Nonetheless, hes able to stabilize himself for 40 minutes of therapeutic musical bloodletting. His quavering voice recites poetic lyrics of unease that examine intrapersonal, interpersonal, and societal dynamics, while his music is a slow-motion swirl of jazz, blues, soul, avant hip-hop, ambient techno, and psychedelic rock. These ballads sometimes sound improvised and also dubbed out on the fly, at times resembling an unlikely link between David Sylvians Blemish and Keith Hudsons Flesh of My Skin Blood of My Blood. Lines packed with detail and wordplay are abundant, yet whats more remarkable is how the plain expressions are just as heavy in meaning. In "(re)Turn," one of few songs with a rhythm indicating forward motion instead of stasis, Lucas reasons and questions, faint if measured, until the drums drop out and reappear in gummed-up form as he makes one of the albums many allusions to instability and displacement: "Fall asleep at the wheel again/Guess Im lucky I made it home/I dont know if Id call it that." A struggle to connect, another feeling often sensed, at least ends temporarily in the muffled thumps of the closing "For Ocean." Lucas is in front of the stage instead of on it, admiring a performer he feels is "not heavenly but on this plane with me." He sounds like hes receiving direct sunlight on permafrost. ~ Andy Kellman