Eliza, formerly known as Eliza Doolittle has done a lot. She’s been signed since 2008 but has been performing for ever by the looks of it. It seems inevitable that this would be the case. Her mum is a Tony Award winning Musical Theatre performer and represented the UK in 1994 Eurovision Contest. Eliza is also the Grand Daughter of Sylvia Young of the eponymous Theatre School.
So she’s been on a journey – The Darkening Green is her 5th Studio Album across her two identities, the ‘Doolittle’ was shed back in 2017 where it looks like she adopted a more mature approach. My history with her is non existent. The algorithms were insistent that I listen to the Single ‘Cheddar’ in February and as usual, the algo was right, I loved it, nearly chose it as my Spin It track last month, did chose it in my 4 track shortlist. So when the album dropped on 6th March I was straight in.
The album is short, it is only 9 tracks and 35 minutes long. This goes against the recent trend of what I often feel are bloated albums with poor decision making on what should and shouldn’t be included. I am very happy about this. At this point in the year, in my current mood, I want a short, tight and direct album and this is exactly what we’ve been given.
Thematically the album is about love, relationships, the pressure of modern life, nature, city life and the connections between these. However, the songs manage to blend these themes into one, feeling or mood regardless of the specific theme. The album was finished a week or so before Eliza became a mother. I think I can hear the calm contemplation of impending parenthood? In interviews she talks about flowers being strong enough to push up between concrete, a visual that is captured on the cover, this feels like over arching theme.
Read an interview with Eliza talking about the album here.
Genre-wise … what is this? Let’s do a quick genre-roll-call; R&B / Alt-R&B / Soul / Pop / Sophisti-Pop / Neo Soul / Indie-Soul / Chamber-Soul is a new one that I came across when researching this /
I have looked into critics (and this album has not been widely reviewed) and listeners reviews to look at how they describe this and there is very little consistency. I am tempted to return to my on running joke sub-genre title ‘Soul Driven Sophisti-Pop’ … cause that’s exactly what it is. We can call it Soul. I’m happy with R&B but that has become close to meaningless. What ever we call it, I do think there is something particularly British about this album? I am not sure I can imagine an American Artist creating this? As we discussed last month, Neo-Soul in my mind at least, is an American genre and of a specific time (late 90’s / early 00’s). I can’t think of any any British artists that I would describe as Neo-Soul but this album has been described as Neo Soul. Go figure.
Stylistically speaking, it’s very tightly produced, razor sharp, crisp, clean and bone dry! There is nothing remotely moist about any track on this album. It’s relatively sparsely instrumented soul music. There is a lot of space, bone-dry-air in the production. This type of production can sound clinical and lacking emotion and I would understand someone who didn’t like this using that kind of language. There is a degree of separation of presentation that is undeniable but there is a lot of vocal warmth even when singing some of the most withering lyrics.
The album feels very coherent, a collection of tracks written, rehearsed and recorded as one. I am not sure if this is the case? But it feels like that. It feels like it captures a feeling of a certain time and mood. There are 2 producers but the end product is beautifully consistent. There are deep grooves (Cheddar), funky up tempo tracks (Pleasure Boy) and slower jams (Major) but they all feel like the blend and weave together into a coherent sound.
There are moments when these tracks sound like Prince, on Spiral there is a definite sound of Billie Eilish, there’s 80’s soul pop moments that remind me of many artists, on some tracks I hear guitars played in a similar manner to Nilifur Yanya (Because We Can). I am sure you can all name numerous other artists that you hear? However, I think she never sounds like any other single artist though, she’s distilled the last 40 years of Soulful R&B pop into 35 mins which is pretty impressive.
The bass guitar does a lot of work on this album, as does the rim shot! The percussion is sparse, but perfectly so. Is there a single cymbal other than a hit hat very low in the mix? We’ve commented recently on guitar focused R&B albums and this is another one. Given the sparsity of the instrumentation there is a fair amount of complexity in the guitar parts which feels quite focused (again a nod or similarity to Nilifur?
I am loving the simplicity and quality of this album. It is what I want at the moment. Will it work for your guys?
thisisnothappening.net 