What's next in R&B? A duo of new CDs just may have the answer.
First up is Lisa Shaw's Cherry (Naked Music). Shaw has made a name for herself by crooning hooks on house tracks, but her first full-length album finds her venturing into shadowy, late-night territory that owes a rich debt to jazz, trip-hop, and Reagan-era R&B. It's a perfect match for her quietly luminous pipes. Stereotypical house divas have gospel to thank for their energetic riffs. Not so for Shaw, whose languid vocals have more in common with the New York soul of Phyllis Hyman.
On Cherry's strongest tracks, Shaw revisits the dance floor soul of the '80s (re: Shannon and Cheryl Lynn) but tweaks the formula so the end result is anything but nostalgic. Jams like "Push-Button" and "Hot Skin" have one foot in the past, but Shaw buffs them with chilled trip-hop 'til they beckon with a sleek digital gleam of the future.
Shaw stumbles into Muzak-worthy mediocrity when she tackles ballads, and alas, the album is loaded with them. But when it's good, Cherry feels prescient in its take on modern R&B.
Like Shaw, singer/producer Steve Spacek gets down to the beat of his own drum machine. Part of it comes from being an outsider. Though his new album, Space Shift (Sound In Color), was recorded largely in Los Angeles, Spacek hails from South London, and his music bristles with the sort of irreverent spirit that marks the best of British soul.
He first set heads nodding as part of the group Spacek, a collective whose grooves lay somewhere between trip-hop and R&B. This first solo outing finds Spacek spreading his wings. While Spacek the band was known for tracks that relied almost completely on atmosphere and mood, Spacek the man offers a more completely formed sound, as full-bodied as the best classic soul. His music runs thick with familiar black-music archetypes. The falsetto soul of Curtis Mayfield lives side-by-side with the bedroom R&B of the Isley Brothers; the sweaty funk of Sly and the Family Stone cohabitates with the icebox jazz of Roy Ayers.
The elements are familiar, but Spacek's genius lies in his ability to deconstruct and put the pieces back together in new and unexpected ways. Case in point: "Thursdays" finds Spacek tossing out airy vocals that bear the spirit of Shirley Horn at her most refined. But he catapults that spirit into faraway galaxies by mating his melody with a fuzzy sci-fi groove. And then there's "Slave." Expertly meshing off-kilter computer beats with Spacek's frayed solicitation, the song is hypnotically sexy, so hedonic it feels spiritual. If Marvin Gaye were still alive and making music, this is what we hope he'd sound like.
Space Shift isn't perfect. Its momentum slackens toward the end, with a string of tracks that lack focus and tension. But even at its least inspired, this album towers above most recent R&B. When the year ends, Spacek's opus will no doubt rest atop many a "Best of 2005" list.
Both Cherry and Space Shift offer interpretations of R&B that are edgier, more polished, and more mature than the prevailing standard. Do these CDs augur what the future holds for mainstream soul? One can only hope.
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