FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
PHOTOS: Lianne La Havas
I am putting some amazing albums in Vinyl Corner from black artists around the world. Today’s feature concerns the brilliant Lianne La Havas and her second album, Blood. I would recommend you get it on vinyl as the album cover is fantastic, but there is a banquet of brilliant music to be found! Drop the needle on this brilliant album and you are brought into this wonderful space where your senses crackle and your imagination runs away! Released on Warner Bros. Records, Blood followed the success of her debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough? in 2012. Following Is Your Love Big Enough? coming into the world, La Havas performed at various venues and festivals; she visited Jamaica and, when there, it compelled her to connect with her roots and throw in some new sonic strands. La Havas met producer Stephen McGregor at the same time and one cannot underestimate her time in Jamaica regarding the inspiration for Blood. The title says it all, really: songs about her family and roots; what swims through her and makes her heart beat. Compared to her debut, there is more slink, syncopation and groove on Blood. The album benefits from a wider palette and the fact La Havas worked with a variety of producers. She took this amazing template we heard on Is Your Love Big Enough? and stepped away from the largely acoustic sound.
Blood is a bigger, hotter record that combines several different sounds. There are some beautiful Neo-Soul moments, but La Havas brings in some Pop, Jazz and Reggae. Songs sort of form a story, rather than stand separate. It is the cohesive flow and fluidity of Blood that makes it so fascinating, complete and appealing. We get some nice reversed drums, cool effects and unusual sediments on Blood. The production is altogether more ambitious; La Havas experimenting more with sound and emotional resonance. There are some huge, colourful moments that sit perfectly alongside the more delicate, introspective and emotional. Blood gained a lot of positive feedback when it came out in 2015 and it, to me, is one of the best albums of the year. With terrific singles like Unstoppable, Blood spoke to so many people and marked La Havas as a special talent. The combination of sounds on Blood – Reggae, Neo-Soul and Pop – was quite rare from a British artist in 2015…it is still not often employed. One gets some sweet vibes and dance, but there are rawer edges and plenty of electricity. AllMusic reviewed Blood and had this to say:
“Among the collaborators here are Stephen McGregor (son of Freddie McGregor), retro-soul specialist Jamie Lidell, Disclosure's Howard Lawrence, and pop heavy weights Mark Batson and Paul Epworth. La Havas goes for a bigger, bolder, more produced sound without glossing over her singer/songwriter/guitarist origin. The point is made in the opener, a storybook love song about being swept away that is carried on a rhythm firmer than anything heard on the debut.
On "Tokyo," La Havas' yearning and state of disorientation is intensified by hazy effects and an appealingly chunky and slow groove that wouldn't be out of place on Jessie Ware's Devotion. "Midnight" and "Ghost" likewise wouldn't have the same resonance if merely sung and strummed, while "Never Get Enough" enters discretely but repeatedly veers into a dissonant stomp of lust and vexation. A few moments, like the wistful "Wonderful" and candid closer, are as hushed and restrained as the first album's highlights. The most vivid autobiographical song is "Green & Gold," a standout Lidell collaboration referencing La Havas' growth into an adult who is proud and understanding of her background and identity. This work leaves the debut, impressive as it was, in the dust”.
When they were reviewing Blood, Drowned in Sound discussed her artistic growth and fearless experimentation:
“One of the innumerable ways in which La Havas exhibits her maturation as an artist on Blood is through a manifest lack of hesitance when it comes to experimentation. On 'Grow', the instrumental commences with subdued, aural guitar strumming, then metamorphoses into an accelerated timbre on the chorus, dictated by vociferous drums. La Havas’s vocals equally become more clamorous to supplement the tempo, all the while displaying a causative command of the song. Infused with the concurrently clamorous and chaotic ambience of Kingston, Jamaica dance halls, La Havas’s invigorated artistry seems to be exhibited at every turn on the album.
‘Never Get Enough’ is an even more stunning example of La Havas’s experimental dabblings. Like ‘Grow,’ the verses are laced with a quieted, melodic essence until the instrumental abruptly discharges a flurry of distorted synths. Oscillating between delicate harmonising and howling, La Havas’s emphatic emotional paroxysms on the chorus enrich the song’s content, of a person craving a love interest to the point of addiction.
Although Blood only features ten predominantly short songs, the myriad flashes of brilliance render the album’s brevity irrelevant. Fittingly titled, ‘Good Goodbye’ is a sentimental ode to her listeners - inhabits of a “wondrous world.” Similarly to the ensuing tracks, Blood’s poignant finale simultaneously showcases La Havas’s burgeoning ingenuity and blossoming maturation as an artist. Concluding a cohesively stellar album, La Havas provides a 'good' sonic goodbye. Fans can only hope that the 25-year-old’s "goodbye” is not permanent, and she will keep releasing premium material”.
Earlier, I was mentioning how La Havas mixed genres on Blood; how she might be seen as a Neo-Soul artist. I have read so many reviews where she compared to others and you get those labels. I guess we do it to every artist but, when it comes to black artists, do we run the risk of stereotyping?! I think it is important to assign an artist to genres, but Lianne La Havas has experienced the same tags and descriptions her entire career. When speaking with The Guardian back in 2015, she addressed the subject:
“There are moments on Blood that recall the artistry and ambition of Jill Scott or Lauryn Hill, comparisons that have led to La Havas being described as a neo or nu-soul artist. These are not labels she welcomes.
“I eventually want to get rid of genre,” she says. “I don’t think it helps. The music is what it is. The 10 tracks on my album – none of them sound the same to me. Also …” She pauses. “I just think soul gets misused. Whatever you are singing about, you are singing about a real thing. So someone like Bon Iver could be considered a soul artist rather than folk because he plays acoustic guitar. So I would not be happy with ‘neo soul’.”
These generalisations are, she thinks, based on skin colour alone. “I have a big problem with it.I don’t know how deep I want to go into it now because I have a lot to say on it, but I just don’t believe you should be classed a certain genre because of your skin colour. It seems ludicrous because I don’t think people make stuff sound the way it does because of their colour.”
New tracks like Green and Gold and the majestic Grow are testament to this liberation. Beyond the stargazing and the odd moment of existential despair is hope. “I wanted it to be hopeful. I wanted it to be joyous, I guess. I seemed to feel better as I did each part of this album. I was using music to discover what I liked. Womanhood, feeling like an adult, but not being quite mature yet – I wanted to celebrate that.”
Blood is not without its moments of easy listening. But there is something unusual about her music compared to the rest of the millennials currently selling records. There is no trace of London Grammar’s quarter-life crisis, nor is there Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and Adele’s hankering for long-term commitment, for joint bank accounts, for settling down. Lurking beneath the serenity, La Havas, with her astral love affairs and first-name terms with the most libidinous man alive, is a star. Floating through the darkest reaches of space”.
You can visit her website to get all the latest news but, as she recently signed back in to Twitter, it seems like there might be some activity. A pinned tweet from 2017 suggested it was time for new music so now, as she is sending out tweets, does this mean we might get some new music this year or in 2020? It does seem like something is brewing, and it will be good to have La Havas back. I love Blood and think it is an album that everyone should investigate. Throw away genres and labels and experience Blood as a pure, complete body of work from an artist who put her heart and soul into every song. Four years after its release, it still sounds so new and revealing – you listen and things you did not notice before coming through. As we look ahead and wonder whether album number three is just around the corner, ensure you pick up a copy of Blood. It is a stunning, beautiful album from…
ONE of Britain’s very best.