Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 09/25/2007
Say what you will about bassist, songwriter, singer, bandleader, and arranger
Me'Shell Ndegéocello, any box you attempt to put her into is not possibly big enough to hold her creativity and restless, unwieldy aesthetic vision. On
"The Sloganeer: Paradise," a tune in which she equates the bland, complicit nature of blindly living modern life with committing suicide, she sings: "To know me is to know I love with/My imagination." It's a summation of her entire career thus far, and this album furthers that notion exponentially.
The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams is
Ndegéocello's debut for
Decca; it is wilder than
Cookie: An Anthropological Mixtape, or her last recording,
The Spirit Music Jamia: Dance of the Infidel. The latter set was a project that indulged her love of postmodern jazz and engaged in improvisation. She directed an ensemble that included
Oliver Lake,
Don Byron,
Jack DeJohnette,
Kenny Garrett,
Ron Blake,
Brandon Ross,
Lalah Hathaway,
Cassandra Wilson, and others. It walked a line between tight song-oriented material and longer jam-based tunes, and she didn't really sing on it. That's remedied here, and her sultry, smoky voice is heard on virtually every cut. Musically, this albums walks through walls. There are funky soul tunes whose backdrops are full of psychedelic music that would make the latter-day
Jimi Hendrix smile in delight (think the material from
Cry of Love). There are jazz-oriented tunes that slip toward pop, folk, and whole-tone folk songs. The lyrical content engages spiritual concerns and carnal love more often than not in the same song. And while she once more employs a wildly diverse collection of collaborators that include everyone from
Ross and
Lake to
Pat Metheny,
Oumou Sangare,
Robert Glasper,
Mike Severson,
Daniel Jones,
Doyle Bramhall,
David Gilmore (not the one from
Pink Floyd),
James Newton, and
Graham Haynes, she also cut two songs (
"Evolution" and the bonus cut
"Soul Spaceship"), playing all the instruments herself. So what does it sound like? The future arriving fully formed on the doorstep. It opens provocatively enough with noted American Muslim teacher and Islamic scholar
Shiek Hamza Yusuf reciting the predictions of Mohammed to a backwash of
Ross' guitar and ambient sounds. (
Yusuf was the man who appeared with
George W. Bush after 9/11 and denounced the attacks and all religious violence, and is working for a return to Islamic sciences as well as assisting Western governments in understanding Islamic culture and Muslims.) It moves into a rock & roll dreamscape called
"Sloganeering: Paradise" awash in keyboards, a drummer playing drum and bass breaks that would make
Prince jealous.
"Evolution" is a spaced-out psychedelic dirge with few lyrics and a sound field worthy of
Hendrix (and indeed her guitar playing is influenced in that direction). The sci-fi jazz of
"Virgo," with Lake, Newton, and trombonist
George McMullen, hovers and floats in vanguard space before turning into a dreamy pop song with acoustic guitars, synth washes, and samples but is held together with a gorgeous melody and vocal performance (and contains a funky little solo by
Lake on alto saxophone).
"Shirk" is a gorgeous spiritual duet between
Sangare and
Ndegéocello with
Hervé Sambe and
Metheny on acoustic guitars.
Metheny also appears on
"Article," the following cut with a guest appearance by
Thandiswa Mazwai singing with
Ndegéocello, but this time out she pops that bass of hers in response. It's a dizzying cut with shifting rhythms and textures, and call-and-response vocals that feel more like counterpoint as different sonic and textural motifs move across the front of the tune. All this and the record is just over halfway. The deep spirituality at work here has been present in
Ndegéocello's work arguably since the beginning, but it has become more pronounced in recent years. That said, the beautiful and poetic expressions of desire as it encounters both flesh and the divine are soulful, without pretension or artifice.
"Michelle Johnson" is a freewheeling exploration of electronic outer realms, tough guitar, and bass-heavy funk, with killer drum kit work by
Deantoni Parks and hand percussion by
Gilmar Gomes. The sonic treatments by
Scott Mann and
Chad Royce are all structure to fill the space
around the artist's basslines and expressive belly-deep voice -- and you can be the judge as to which
Michelle Johnson she's speaking of here.
"Solomon" is among the most beautiful songs this woman has ever written. It is presented in a painterly way, illustrated and framed inside a warm bubbly electronic backdrop that gives way to languid melody, a spine-moving bassline that grooves low and slow on this futuristic soul lullaby. The official album closes with the completely out-to-lunch
"Relief: A Stripper Classic," which is the true missing link between urban soul, heavy metal, and slow, downtempo funk -- all of it with a pronounced hook and refrain.
"Soul Spaceship" is the place where
Sly Stone,
Amp Fiddler, and
Millie Jackson meet in a big bass sci-fi wonderland presided over by
Rick James and
Teena Marie! The basslines and synth lines are huge, drum machines abound and skitter, and all the while
Ndegéocello and
Sy Smith make a beautifully grooving mess with the vocals. Ultimately,
The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams, with its irony, sincerity, seeming contradiction, and elliptical paradox, is the most expansive, complex record yet released by this always provocative artist. It will take more than a single listen to warm up to, but once you actually take it in, it will be one of her recordings you go back to over and again because while it gives up its secrets slowly, it gives the listener something new each time too. Wild, visionary, and marvelously tough, this is a groover that will turn you inside out.
~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
;)
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