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this and more reviews & interviews about the new record (Due out next Tuesday Oct 6th) can be found over at
http://freemyheart.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5946041581/m/702109961?r=988100271#988100271
"Talking With Meshell Ndegeocello"
By Eugene Holley Jr. for the Village Voice
Tuesday, September 29th 2009 at 2:38pm
Bassist/composer Meshell Ndegeocello's artistry represents a hejira: a spiritual journey that began with her 1993 debut CD Plantation Lullabies and continues eight records later with Devil's Halo, a 12-track collection of ethereal, moody musings buoyed by Caribbean riddims and guitar-centric, country-rock grooves, all laced with her caressing, occasionally falsettoed contralto. We talked with Ndegeocello by phone from her upstate New York home about her love of Sade, strippers, and life's gray areas.
Q: Devil's Halo brims with a lot of musical and spiritual complexity and ambiguity.
A: I love the myth of the devil: the fallen angel who became jealous. So the symbolism of the Devil's Halo for me is that there are gray areas in music and life. I'm a songwriter, and I just go and write about the people in my life, and where I've come to at this point in my life—from making records at 22 to being 41. I've seen other things, met all kinds of people, and had all kinds of experiences.
Q: You aurally illustrate your experiences with some interesting tempos, tones, and textures. "Slaughter" shows your extraordinary love for Sade, and tracks like "Tie One On" and "Lola" highlight a wide array of influences, from pop to rap.
A: The RZA is one of the greatest songwriters and programmers. I'm really into the Human League, and Trevor Horn is a genius in the way he constructs recordings. Sade is that $200 bottle of wine: You're not going to have that every night at dinner. She's a great song stylist; her writing and her voice are amazing. The older Yes records had these beautiful tapestries and guitars. That's what I tried to achieve in this particular recording: some sonic tapestries that people, even if they're not listening to the lyrics, could just feel or hear, or just have a deep, inner dialogue with.
Q: I definitely feel some ska-reggae basslines on "Mass Transit" and "White Girl."
A: My bass playing is super-influenced by Sting, Prince, and Family Man Barrett, who has the most well-constructed, melodic basslines I've ever heard, and his pocket is just astounding. I'll always have that sort of ska-reggae feel because it feels good.
Q: Speaking of the pocket, please tell me how you turned Ready for the World's 1986 hit "Love You Down" into—paraphrasing one of your compositions—a stripper's classic?
A: I have a great respect and admiration for strippers! (Laughs.) I remember just grooving on that song for a while, and the melody and the beat just circled in my head, and that's what came out of my body. I love taking other people's songs and totally deconstructing them into my filter.
Q: The title track is an instrumental interlude that captures the essence of the CD.
A: To me, that interlude or lullaby is a transition out of being so self-absorbed, to looking at things in another way. And I'm very glad to get to that point: I'm ready to see things not so much in black and white. And I'm going to continue to change as a human being."
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"Making Music On Her Own Terms"
by Sarah Rodman for the Boston Globe on October 2, 2009
Meshell Ndegeocello lets out a low chuckle when asked if she's worried her fans might think she's been hitting the bottle based on some of the boozy characters on her new album, "Devil's Halo."
There is "Lola," who imbibes until she passes out. One drink is too many and yet there are not enough drinks in the world to get over an ex on "Hair of the Dog." And the album ends with "Crying in Your Beer," a bleak plea from someone who seems to have fully grasped the concept of mortality.
"I live in a small town that's full of watering holes, and I get to see a lot of drama unfold," she says, letting her throaty laugh fade over the line from her home in Hudson, N.Y. "That's what's hard — everyone thinks everything's about me."
To the mainstream pop audience, Ndegeocello is best known for her "Wild Night" with John Mellencamp in 1994. But the singer-songwriter and bassist has made a series of solo albums devastating in their emotional content and adventurous in their musical spirit. "Devil's Halo" — with its collisions of trip-hop, psychedelia, pop, R&B, and jazz — is no exception.
"I listen to everything from prog rock to Human League to Joy Division to Ready for the World," says Ndegeocello, who'll play the Middle East Downstairs next Wednesday. "I'm one of those people — I really, really, really love music. So I just try to listen to as much as I can, and I guess through my filter it comes out in different ways."
Indeed, Ndegeocello's unique filtering process has endeared her to critics, fellow musicians, and a robust cult of followers who managed to find a point of entry at some stage of her deliriously eclectic career. Some signed on with her hipster funk hit "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" when she was among the first signees to Madonna's Maverick label in the early '90s. Others came on board with the Mellencamp duet. Jazz fans became enamored following her improvisationally minded, all-star releases featuring luminaries like Jack DeJohnette, Pat Metheny, and Cassandra Wilson. And still others came to know Ndegeocello first as a sought-after side woman with artists as disparate as Joshua Redman, Alanis Morissette, Indigo Girls, and Karl Denson.
Metheny, who calls Ndegeocello "one of my very favorite artists," says the element that truly sets her apart is her "deep sense of personal vision."
"She is a strong and unique player with a strong and unique concept — and for me that is the draw," Metheny says. "There just are not that many people around that truly have their own thing. She is one of them."
Ndegeocello lets out a mock nefarious chuckle when she ponders the underlying reason she has been able to synthesize so many influences without sounding derivative. "I'm kind of an . I really like my individuality, so I guess there's something in my psyche that's always like, 'but how can I destroy it and make it my own?"'
She certainly manages to do that to a cover of "Love You Down" by aforementioned boy band Ready for the World. Ndegeocello deconstructs the '80s slow jam for the 21st century, breaking down the backdrop with pounding high-hats and serpentine keyboards covered in fuzz but never losing sight of the core melody or innate sexiness of the May-December homage.
"I don't buy a lot of R&B; it hasn't fed me lately," she says of her decision to revisit a high school favorite. "I wanted to do something that would show that I really have love for it but was trying to hear it in a different way."
That statement could essentially serve as Ndegeocello's musical motto. It's evident in the catholicity of sounds on "Halo" that somehow hang together — like the way that "Slaughter" shifts on a dime from trippy electro-folk to violent rock swells, or how the bitter and dramatic "Lola" unspools with an unwieldy guitar solo into a wash of dreamy ambience that wouldn't sound out of place on a mid-period Genesis album. Darkness and light battle for equal time with the former winning beautifully in the deep melancholy of Lisa Germano's cello on "Hair of the Dog."
"I guess I'm weird. I like the darkness. I'm not afraid of it as much anymore," she says.
Ndegeocello has her work cut out for her when it comes to composing a set list.
While she reassures that she will be playing some of her older material, she says she's reached a "new place."
"What influenced the making of 'Devil's Halo' is I wanted to write songs that I'd like to play for a long time," she says. "These are grooves that can grow and change and evolve, and the songs are solid enough to depart from them. So when you come to the live show, I hope people understand I'm not ever going to be Katy Perry or Beyoncé, who I love. I'm just a musician and I play with amazing musicians, so hopefully they'll come check it out and I can keep live music alive."
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�
have you listened to
her stuff?
v
http://www.meshell.com/site/
https://www.facebook.com/officialmeshell?fref=ts
http://www.freemyheart.com
RIP David Williams:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Williams_(guitarist)
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