FEATURE:
Revisiting…
Say She She - Prism
_________
WHETHER you constitute this to be…
an album or a long-E.P. (as it is eight tracks long; about half an hour in duration), there is no doubt that the dazzling and wonderful Prism missed some people last year. One of the best releases of 2022, Say She She’s debut album deserved better. I will bring in a couple of reviews that back that theory up. Before getting there – and an interview that Say She She gave last year -, this is from the group’s Bandcamp page:
“The highly anticipated debut LP from Say She She (named as a silent nod to Nile Rodgers, C’est chi-chi!: It's Chic!), the all female discodelic soul band, will transport you with their dreamy harmonies, catchy hooks and up tempo grooves!
The ladies of Say She She deliver a mesmerizing vocal performance, weaving their voices together in an elegant, haunting style that incorporates earworm melodies, lush harmonies, playful adlibs, and climactic hindi riffs accented with operatic cries that will reel you in and lift you into their otherworldly ether.
The band's sound is a hat tip to late 70’s girl groups with the three strong female lead voices of Piya Malik (El Michels Affair staple feature, and former backing singer for Chicano Batman), Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya Gazelle Brown at the epicenter of a roaring roster of musicians including former members of the Dap-Kings, The Extraordinaires, the house band at Ronnie Scotts and members of underground cult-funk band Orgone.
Pulling sounds from every corner of their record collections, Say She She is a multi- dimensional, multicultural, multi-instrumental, collaborative melting pot. Think Donna Summer meets The Rotary Connection with a sprinkling of Asha Puthli backed by members of the Meters.
During the pandemic, the band found themselves making their debut LP- polishing off songs made on old tape machines in the basement studios of friends, and this September will see their much-awaited debut album, to be released via Karma Chief / Colemine Records. The largely self-produced debut album ‘Prism’ features contributions from Dap Kings Joey Crispiano & Victor Axelrod, Max Shrager (The Shacks), Bardo Martinez (Chicano Batman), Nikhil Yearwadekar (former Antibalas), Andy Bauer (Twin Shadow), and Matty McDermot (NYPMH), and is already one of the most anticipated records of the year”.
Before going to a particular interview I was thinking of, here is a great little chat and spotlight of the incredible Say She She. You may not have heard of this incredible trio before (though you really do need them in your regular rotation):
“THERE’S A SYNERGY WHEN THE MEMBERS OF — Say She She get together. Whether they’re performing on stage, rehearsing, or chatting about their work, the seismic chemistry among group leaders Nya Gazelle Brown, Piya Malik, and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham is palpable. Alone, each member is a reputable artist in the music scene and has a myriad of achievements. On Prism, their newly-released debut album, the group has created a tour de force.
“As three women with many different temperaments and moods, why shouldn't our catalog also lean into all those different genres?” Malik shares. “We don't want to be defined by one particular sound.”
Wide-ranging influences meld together, from the funk-infused bass line on “Apple Of My Eye” to the disco sensibilities of “Pink Roses.” Rich harmonies are at the core of the songs, as each member locks into the groove and soars. On the bridge of “Don’t Wait,” their voices syncopate as each singer delivers the line “I wonder what she’s thinking” with intensity.
The album’s title track features lush synth soundscapes and dreamy vocals. To further encapsulate the psychedelic feel, the accompanying music video mixes a kaleidoscope of imagery: grassy fields, swaying dance motions, and water cascading along mossy rocks. “Prism” was the first song they wrote together on the album, and is Malik’s personal favorite.
“We wrote [“Prism”] in the summer, and it was just this freedom and everything was sweet,” she says. “It felt like the trio was finally together and formed. The song reflects that feeling.”
Malik and Cunningham met through the floorboards of their New York City apartment building, first hearing each other singing and eventually meeting face-to-face. It wasn’t long before they started having writing sessions together, later persuading Brown to join the project. Garnering cosigns from tastemakers at KCRW and BBC, the group soon became a band to watch. Their album release show is set for Nov. 3, followed by tour stops along the West Coast.
“It's so much fun when we step on the stage because everybody is in it to just have the best time, and that's exactly what happens,” Brown explains. “We are so thrilled to be sharing and exchanging that beautiful energy with the audience.”
Cunningham adds, “We sort of feed off of each other's energy. There's this unspoken language that we have with each other. That happened immediately, at least for me.” She goes on to share that connection is also felt during writing sessions. Despite having different backgrounds and life experiences, the group members collaborate to flesh out stories and ideas.
PHOTO CREDIT: Caroline Safran
It’s evident just how much the members of Say She She respect and admire one another when they praise Cunningham’s contributions to the band’s visual assets or when Malik describes how the group supported her idea to sing Hindi verses on the album. They’ve created a welcoming atmosphere that is often hard to find within bands.
“It's like a family, being in a band, but you have to be careful with who you open yourself up to sometimes in this city — all of us have been burned in different types of relationships,” Malik describes. “It was really important that we had trust and friendship at the center.”
Malik adds that the group holds the same values: the trio has a connection to activism and sees themselves at the intersection of activism and art. In the past, the group has also been open about working in a predominantly male music space. The early single “Norma” is about the rollback on abortion rights, and “Forget Me Not” was inspired by the feminist group Guerrilla Girls.
“We want to stand for something,” Brown declares. “We want to make people feel something and we want to use the platform that we have.”
The trio has built a space for expression and healing through Say She She. Brown, Malik, and Cunningham hope Prism raises people’s spirits, but for Malik, it already has.
“It was the biggest smile on my face when I realized that no matter how I wanted to express myself, they would always accept me”.
d fell in love with playing music together.
In this insightful interview, Ones to Watch wanted to know more about the wonderful group. Even though we have our trip of leads, Say She She are actually a larger collective – responsible for live shows that are among the most memorable you will ever witness:
“Ones To Watch: Who is Say She She?
Say She She: We are a femme-led eight-piece discodelic soul band that all met in NYC! We write and sing about our lived experience as women in our brand of feminist funk, but we mainly see ourselves as beauticians whose job it is to remind people of the beauty in the world and lift them: by dragging them onto the dancefloor at live shows or soothing them to sleep with the warmth of wax on the decks.
What is Prism all about?
Prism is a collection of our most honest and soulful songs—a lover’s rock delight for the decks—meant to uplift and brighten the spirits.
The title track “Prism” is a song about a mind-opening psychedelic experience of running through the colorful fields of upstate New York in the summertime. The lyrics are meant to encourage you to let go and flow effortlessly alongside nature. Our favorite part of the record? Most definitely the twinkle sprinkles of Victor Axelrod (Dap Kings / Menahan Street Band / The Frightnrs / AKA Tiklah) with his carefree light touch keys and shimmering synths on the title track.
The record was made during the height of COVID and we went into music as a powerful force to soothe and heal those around us and the record is our offering, a presentation of our feminine strength. “Pink Roses” is about riding the waves of grief but somehow people say it always makes them wanna dance. And “Fortune Teller” is a lullaby-like melody, underpinned with a killer bass line that makes you groove. “Apple of My Eye” is a love song to New York City where we all met and fell in love with playing music together.
On Prism retro vibes abound, but the album has a diverse feel. How’d you come up with the sound design?
This was a bit of a piecemeal effort given the lockdown in 2020! We paired the analog instrumental stems with digitally recorded vocals and synth overdubs so it definitely feels like a mix of old and new. The limitations we faced during that time—having to remote produce and remote mix—sort of defined our sound in a way. It was intentional but it’s also a product of the constraints that were in place during 2020 and 2021.
How analog is your approach? Do you try to evade digital production or embrace both?
We’ve definitely taken a hybrid approach to production. We love the warm sounds of the tape machine and recorded all the Prism instrumentals to tape at Joey Crispiano’s studio down in DUMBO in 2019.
We thought we were only going in to record demos but once we made the stems they were so undeniable. A bit later during the distanced days of covid, we were able to get into Atomic Studios in Redhood, Brooklyn— thanks to our dear friend Merle—and safely record vocal overdubs. The studio is incredible with a massive live room and three separate isolated vocal booths so it was the perfect place to lay down our vocals, which were all recorded digitally.
Can we expect more of this style in the future, or is the intention to evolve?
We can’t help but evolve as songwriters, as humans, as friends, and as bandmates. Our personal and professional lives have evolved since writing this album so I think that will and to some extent already has been reflected in what we will and have written since. We also think that things are not always linear and some songs and sounds you can come back to again and again. So while we are always growing and changing I hope that some things also remain integral to our vision as artists”.
Even though Say She She have not yet hit their peak – and they are going to be releasing music for years to come -, they hit the ground running on their debut. This is such a confident and mesmeric start from a trio/collective that should be on your radar. This is what NYS Music noted in their extensive and detailed review:
“Prism is an astonishing debut that I don’t think got as much focus, airplay and media reviews as it should have done. Maybe there is too much great music to hear in a year that some inevitably falls through the cracks. That said, there are plenty of Say She She fans that were and are spreading the good word about the magnificent Prism. I will end with a couple of reviews.
“Take a disco: dark, sweaty, neon pink and electric blue, speakers so loud you can taste it, glitter makeup dripping down your face, sequins scratching your skin, thick air, your platform pumps sticking to the dance floor. Now rip the black-out curtains off windows, knock down the walls — sunlight streams in, grass tickles your ankles, clothes hang loose, you can breathe deeply, clearly. That’s Say She She’s new album Prism. It’s sunlight at the rave, clear vocals over deep funk. Rhythm you want to spread out to, bass that feels like a cool breeze.
Say She She, a seven-piece band led by three female leads, is reminding Brooklyn how to dance Le Freak. The band’s name is a nod to Nile Rogers’ “C’est chic!” lyric, with a modern feminine twist. Et aussi chic is the kismet meeting of Piya Malik, Nya Gazelle Brown and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham, the singers at the heart of Say She She. From disparate sides of Brooklyn, the three ran into each other at a house party in Harlem, as one does, and realized their musical chemistry into a full project soon after.
Malik, a former backing singer for Chicano Batman, is partisan to Turkish funk and Hindi riffs. Brown’s concentration was in R&B, and she was trained in classical and jazz vocals from childhood. Cunningham is partial to 80s eclectic progressive groups like Rotary Connection and Tom Tom Club. These three distinct backgrounds merged to create the singular sound of Say She She; a sound, though only inaugurated this year with their first single “Forget Me Not,” that already feels assured in their first album, Prism, releasing Oct. 7.
If there’s a female gaze, such as in the way films like “The Virgin Suicides” and “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” depict love, there’s a female sound in how Say She She describes love and loving in Prism. Their voices are tender and earnest, delicate yet serious; in “Don’t Wait,” even a break-up song is full with solace and healing, wondering about and wanting the best for their ex’s next lover. And all this is set to a rhythmic beat on a funky bassline, making the hips shift, the feet move.
With nature imagery and dreamy vocals, every song on the album evokes the divine feminine. But “Fortune Teller” dives deepest, the layered vocals touching on a host of feminine tropes in the chorus:
“I’m not a fortune teller, I can’t read your mind / I’m not a healer, can’t stop you from going blind / I’m not a fortress, but I will try to protect you.”
Tropes aren’t real life. Sometimes these traditionally feminine roles are aspirations – for people of any genders. Ultimately, we can’t tell the future or heal each others’ wounds. But by interspersing the chorus with beautiful imagery of “the space between the midnight sky,” and “stars that whisper in the night” it feels like all those capabilities might just be possible for anybody and everybody, if only here on the dance floor.
“Better Man,” the album’s closing song, also aims to realize that kind of cosmic love. It’s one of the slower songs on the album, employing strings, muted production and voices layered in complex harmonies. Say She She describes finding a “better man” with the natural imagery of waves rolling in and swimming upstream. Paired with the occasional electronic sparkle, it’s a song Mother Nature would want to dance to”.
I will end up with one of the heartiest recommendations and passionate reviews for Prism. The Guardian awarded it five stars when they sat down with it. This is what Alexis Petridis said in his very glowing and brilliant review. I think that Prism warranted more five star reviews to be honest:
“You can imagine Brooklyn-based trio Say She She’s “discodelic soul” fitting neatly into New York’s early-80s post-punk, post-disco world. That’s not to say that their sound is self-consciously retro – in fact, there’s something very 2022 about its warm, lo-fi, bedroom pop-adjacent production – more to suggest that, as with a lot of artists of the early 80s scene, there’s something appealingly idiosyncratic and boundary-busting about their sound. It stirs together everything from budget electronics to soft Philly soul and the echoing space of dub and tops it off with beautiful vocal harmonies: all three members – London-born Piya Malik and Americans Nya Parker Gazelle and Sabrina Cunningham – started out as classical singers.
A little less spiky than their singles Forget Me Not and Norma, which were inspired by feminist activists the Guerrilla Girls and the overturning of Roe v Wade, respectively, Prism offers an embarrassment of fabulous songs. Pink Roses deals with grief via spindly bargain-basement disco. The title track throws up off-centre, drum-machine-driven funk – if you want a recherché comparison, its rhythm vaguely recalls Voggue’s post-disco hit Dancin’ the Night Away – while the beatless, weightless closer, Better Man, is an exercise in small-hours sublimity.
It’s striking how commercial Say She She’s songwriting could be, at least in theory: it’s easy to picture a more straightforward R&B artist turning the lovely Don’t Wait into a mainstream hit. But the brief Prism is more than good enough as it is: off in its own world, slightly left-of-centre, a delightful place to visit for half an hour”.
Go and listen to the awe-inspiring and hugely immersive Prism. It is an album that you happily lose yourself in. If you want an album that will delve into the heart and soul and get the blood pumping, this is one for you. I think future releases will be a little spikier and similar to their earliest cuts – though new songs like Astral Plane are extraordinary. On their phenomenal debut, Say She She make a bid for recognition and greatness…which they definitely deserve and achieve. I hope more people listen to the album as it is one that should not…
PASS you by.