Dawn Richardmusic seems to come from a higher dimension than us.Even if she goes back to her more radio-friendly days Danity Kane When Didi, the New Orleans singer emerged from the hedonistic landscape of hip-hop and R&B in the late 2000s with an earnest, heartbreaking composition about losing love and finding it under the dance floor’s strobe lights, imbued her songs with a rare vulnerability. She’s a singer of big emotions, and even as she pushes her solo work into more experimental territory, she’s continued to bring her emotions to the fore above all else.
pigment Taking this evolution one step further, we turn Richard’s voice into a luminous fog.Collaboration between bassist and neoclassical composer Spencer Zahn after two cooperated The 2018 debut album captures the sensuous and abstract feeling of Richard’s solo work, but from a completely different perspective. As Richard sings an Impressionist song of love (and self-love), Zahn’s glowing chamber music acts like a prism, splitting her voice into beams of pure color.Profess Mark Hollis fan of the work ECM’s A celestial approach to jazz, Zahn crafts some of the most nuanced arrangements to date, each effortlessly drawing on softly strummed guitars and densely miked clarinet breaths. Take it easy. These two of hers are not only a very natural pairing, they bring out the best in each other.
throughout pigment, Richard’s voice appears and disappears, gradually drifting the listener downstream. While Zahn’s instrumentals are often understated and serene, Richard’s performances are dynamic, regularly growing from a soft quiver to a powerful, all-embracing lament and back again. After the opening “Coral”, set the stage while yawning, Gavin Bryars-Like Hamm, Richard embodies in “Sandstone” and imbues Zahn’s arrangements with immense power. “Dreamer,” she proclaims, like a ghost emerging from the fog, “I want to love like you/I want to see the world through your eyes.” As the song rises to its climax, Richard’s voice merges with Zahn’s instruments and become indistinguishable from each other.The duo return to this mind-boggling psychedelia pigment: “Vantablack” in particular almost melts, with Richard’s vocal dripping like warm sap over Zahn’s shuffling drums.
The greatest gift Richard has given Zahn as a collaborator is the way she keeps his music from getting too cozy. His arrangements may be gorgeous, but a vocalist like Richard needs weight. After “Cerulean” opens with a hypnotizing synthesizer and saxophone, Richard begins building the song to a painstaking peak. “You can’t choose who to give your heart to,” she declares, as suddenly the door flings open and Zahn’s synths rumble like cathedral organs in an ecstatic dawn. won’t It feels too dramatic. The more relaxed “Saffron” has an otherworldly late-night waltz feel, with upright his bass and sax answering Richard’s repeated questions. in the dark.