Adrian Younge Presents Loren Oden: My Heart, My Love

In addition to his work as a background vocalist for a bunch of gospel and R&B legends, Loren Oden has been an essential player on many Adrian Younge projects dating back to the producers score for Black Dynamite. An Oden-Younge highlight reel would have to include Black Dynamites Shot Me in the Heart, Venice Dawns Turn Down the Sound, Bilals Money Over Love, and the Midnight Hours There Is No Greater Love, just for starters. Oden also co-wrote some of those songs, foreshadowing what he could do as a lead artist. For My Heart, My Love, his first album, he gets Younges deluxe Linear Labs Studio package. In his workshop of vintage gear, Younge produces, engineers, co-writes, and provides almost all the instrumentation, and calls upon familiar collaborators such as Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jack Waterson to pitch in a little. Tautly arranged duets and group background vocalists are common on Younge productions, but theyre limited this time to a number featuring Estelle (which doesnt generate nearly as much heat as, say, Oden and Karolinas connection on the Midnight Hours Feel Alive). With very rare exception, the only voice is that of Oden, fronting everything and often supporting himself, adept as ever at switching between expressions of love, grief, consolation, and devotion with little evident exertion. On much of his best earlier work, Oden was basically playing roles, so its gratifying to hear him go in a personal direction to ardent effect. The tenderest and most open song of all is Words to Say, a glowing ballad showcasing Odens upper register atop an 808 drum pattern, strings, and the singers sensitive Fender Rhodes vamp. Dont Be, sweet as can be with a tipsy gait, is something like a dream Brothers Johnson/DAngelo crossover. Most of the rest offers slight variations of Younges filmic, hip-hop-minded take on late-60s/early-70s psychedelic soul, exemplified here by the romantic Galaxies, the appreciative Queen, and the Brazilian-tinged glider Is There a Way. ~ Andy Kellman

エイドリアン・ヤングお抱えのシンガーによる初ソロ作。当然ながらエイドリアンの全面制作で、アリ・シャヒードやラファエル・サディークも演奏で参加した楽曲は美麗なオーケストラを配したリニア・ラブス印のレトロ仕様だが、際立つのはマーヴィン・ゲイやビラルを想起させる甘美なファルセットとドリーミーなハーモニーだ。TR-808を使ったネオ・ソウル、エステルを迎えたジャジーかつサイケデリックなスロウも快演。
bounce (C)林剛