Pity whoever has to write the "file under:" copy for the press release announcing Georgia Anne Muldrow's first album. Not only does it jump genres like hobos jump trains; it's not even always sure about what genre it wants to jump into, and so it drags fragments of other musical worlds with it everywhere it goes. The most hip-hop moments are cracked up by odd meters and halting beats that bleed over from the most free jazz moments, while tinges of electro, r&b, soul, and modern laptop mayhem hang out on the edges of just about everything.
When you first hear Muldrow's voice on Olesi, she sounds like Nina Simone on a long, low, bellowing line. That vocal comes on "New Orleans", the album's wicked opener, a Hurricane Katrina song that never considers trying to be an anthem and instead goes right for the kick in the gut with clattering free jazz. This is down with early-1970s free soul and jazz and has a similar vibe to Archie Shepp's Attica Blues or Sonny Sharrock's "Peanut"-- not to mention Pharaoh Sanders, with whom Muldrow's mother once sang.
No sooner does Muldrow embrace her inner Alice Coltrane, though, than she all but abandons it, leaving the style behind but taking the black spiritual/revolutionary spirit with her-- she's not wearing the pan-African colors on the album cover for nothing. One thing the rest of the album could use is some focus. "Melanin", the first taste we get of her beat-making and production skills, fades away before it even gets two minutes to develop, and 21 tracks in 47 minutes feels a bit like a jumble at times. Despite the hodgepodge, it's mostly interesting-- when she's off, she's not off by much, and when she's on, she's really on.
First, there's the matter of her beats. If you want straight four on the floor, go elsewhere, because these are thoughtfully constructed little fragments of rhythm full of unexpected pauses and extra half-beats. "Frames" is maybe as straightforward as her beats get, and even it stutters and lurches as though it's having trouble carrying the weight of Muldrow's many-tracked vocal. There are places where the listener might sympathize with that difficulty, like "Radio WNK", which essentially drowns in its own smudged brew of random synth and hazy vocals.
When she pulls back and lets things really breathe, the results are astounding, as on "Patience", an unevenly flowing pool of sound that leaves the beat behind completely, allowing Muldrow to basically duet with a bassline. Her vocals run "Feet" like a relay race, each line handing off to a different track, solo delivery answered by big clouds of voices that speak of "teaching the young ones how to organize."
Muldrow has all the ingredients of a major statement laid out on the counter here, but she seems to be probing for the recipe that will put them together correctly. Still, she's in her early twenties and has truly scary talent-- I can see her being asked to produce other people as much as I can see her producing her own records. Olesi is ambitious and impressive in places, and I'm definitely eager to hear what she does next. For the moment, this album shows vision but doesn't quite fulfill it.
