Since they broke through via guest spots on Shabazz Palaces's Black Up, THEESatisfaction have been floating somewhere in the space between Georgia Anne Muldrow's astral visions and Erykah Badu's earthly perception. Their strain of rap&B is tinged with cosmic insight but always tugging earthward, mingling calls for acknowledgement, autonomy, and freedom with utopian visions and sinuous grooves. In the event that liberation actually comes, their music suggests, people will still need to dance.
As the singing half of THEESatisfaction, Catherine "Cat" Harris-White's sideline recording DIY EPs as SassyBlack has given her additional room to express her insights for a couple years now. Categorizing her music in part as "hologram funk," Harris-White's vocals sink into the similar hypnotic chants and plainspoken wisdom that she brings to her main gig. It's in a simpler form, sure; Personal Sunlight, her latest Bandcamp release, harmonizes with itself in a way that seems more intent on delivery than message.
It's the timbre of her voice, spread out along hooks-turned-mantras, that resonates the most. She runs it through fields of beats that are simple, minimalist, sometimes even forgettable in isolation; the fluttering, pendulous synth-guitar riffs in opening cut "(Dance in My) Personal Sunlight" is the closest this six-track EP comes to a memorable melodic element that arises from Harris-White's production rather than her voice. But the drums are catchy in their slipperiness, and keep a sense of focus in the track when Harris-White reels off into subtly melismatic runs. Her voice carries all the style and vibrance the music needs: Her repeated hooks locate an exact and satisfying balance between nonchalance and urgency (she nails it best in "Thriller (Game Healer)").
Her messages are simpler, more general, and more abstract than the Afrocentric core of EarthEE, but if the personal is political, Personal Sunlight isn't a departure at all, really. Harris-White credits this album as the product of a certain epiphany: "I woke up one day and realized my life's full potential. With this new found (previously understood, yet never truly fully actualized) reality, I created". What exactly it was that removed this last remaining block for her isn't specified, even on a pretty matter-of-fact record that rides on simple messages of radiant inspiration ("(Dance in My) Personal Sunlight"), the self-absorption behind environmental neglect ("What's the Sun WithOut the Rain"), and the unrestrained thrill of pure love ("Splish Splash (My Lovin on FLEEK)"). But even when the ratio of what she says to how she says it tilts this far toward the latter, it's not hard to feel the weight she brings to her voice.
