Black Pumas sounds like a band name coined at the twilight of the soul era, when R&B turned grittier, trippier, and funkier. It’s a name that evokes that of the Black Panthers, the African-American activist group who defined militant protest during the late 1960s and early 1970s—which is not coincidentally the period that the Austin-based duo of guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada and vocalist Eric Burton consciously conjure on their eponymous debut album.
At no point on Black Pumas do Quesada and Burton shy away from signifiers of the past. Rhythms roll with the tight precision of the Hi Records rhythm section, “Fire” is punctuated with horns straight out of Stax, “OCT 33” finds Burton obliquely nodding at Otis Redding’s “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song),” the title of its opener “Black Moon Rising” echoes Creedence Clearwater Revival’s doomsday classic “Bad Moon Rising.” Black Pumas are too clever to succumb to pure nostalgic pandering, though. They pointedly avoid the pitfalls that plague well-intentioned retro-soul records, favoring feel over authenticity, playing as much for the head as the heart.
Chalk much of this heady aesthetic up to the duo’s origins as a studio project. A longtime Austin fixture—he played guitar in Grupo Fantasma, who won a Grammy for Best Latin Rock Album in 2011—Quesada started assembling tracks at his studio Electric Deluxe, casting a net for a suitable singer once his ideas took the shape of a song. Friends connected him with Burton, a singer/songwriter who busked his way through the West Coast before settling in central Texas.
Possessing a voice that can slide into the slipstream with ease, Burton lends an elegant elasticity to Quesada’s tightly layered productions. Occasionally the producer/guitarist performs this trick in reverse—“Sweet Conversations,” the album’s dreamy denouement, draws upon a demo Burton recorded at home—but the core of the album lies in how the singer helps shape aural paintings into songs, providing them with warmth and a slight trace of spaciness.
Burton may command attention with his sweet, plaintive voice, but Quesada’s densely woven tapestries are the key to Black Pumas. Inspired by RZA’s crate-digging productions for the Wu-Tang Clan extended universe, Quesada relies on scratchy drum loops, hits of strings, funky electronic pianos, and fuzz guitar. Actual samples may be rare but the fact that the guitarist cobbled together all of this on his own is admirable, particularly when he marshals all of his skill on one cut. The minor-key march “Fire” gains gravity from its blend of ghostly organs and guitar twang, “Stay Gold” shimmers with the sultriness of a heat wave, and “Black Moon Rising” unfurls with a hushed sense of spectacle.
At these moments, which are the best Black Pumas has to offer, the duo’s flair for drama is so stirring, they can seem acutely cinematic. As appealing as this Technicolor sound may be, it can’t quite hide the seams created when the duo stitched their two sensibilities together in the studio. Burton’s misty introspection can give Quesada’s soulful prowess an ethereal edge, yet it can sometimes suggest the whole enterprise is little more than snazzy pastiche. While there may be pleasure in such a patchwork of sound, particularly when it’s done with such style and verve, the assemblage bears a pointed sense of insularity. Burton sings about interior voyages and the tracks were usually constructed by no more than two musicians; it’s music made at home, for home listening. That’s all well and good, since the duo has considerable skill, but this existential lonerism underscores a chasm between the pair and their influences. Unlike the icons of the era they find so inspiring, Black Pumas rarely look outside of themselves.
Buy: Rough Trade
