STACK #148 Feb 2017

MUSIC NEWS

visit stack.net.au

continued

TOURING 03/02 - 05/02

TASH SULTANA T ash Sultana has slowed down the world a little. In her early YouTube ‘Bedroom Sessions’ (whatever ‘early’ means for someone who rose at the rate of Mach 3) our excitement never cracked into impatience as she gradually layered her loops – we were totally happy to lie back on the grass and watch the way her cloudscapes shifted, thickened and waned as she added or subtracted. Losing that ‘slow music’ effect is the danger of bringing her into a studio, but it turns out that’s a pointless anxiety because Sultana’s sound isn’t actually dictated by the limitations of looping. On her EP, the studio versions of her four Bedroom Sessions tracks thankfully haven’t been cleaned up to within an inch of

their lives; they’re as glitteringly atmospheric and real as they ever

SAMPHA INTERVIEW

were. With the addition of a two-parter live track, Big Smoke – which showcases Sultana’s fluttering finger- picking, beat-boxing, vocal harmonies and proclivity for messing with tempo and style – she’s made a truly

T he third single from Sampha Sisay’s debut album is (No One Knows Me) Like The Piano : “No one knows me like the piano in my mother’s home/ You would show me I have something some people call a soul,” he sings over a simple melody on the titular instrument, going on to describe its arrival when he was three, and how it knows he’ll be back home before long. If you ever learned music when

mostly West African,” Sampha says. The main kit in Kora Sings was played by British producer/ drummer Pauli “The PSM”, with its bones a jam between the Kora player and Sampha on “this kind of xylophoney instrument.”

impressive entrance into the professional arena. ZKR

Process by Sampha is out February 3 via Remote Control.

Amongst that array of instrumental familiarity,

Sampha gives the most love and encouragement to his vocals. “My voice is really temperamental – I kind of have

you were a kid, you’ll recall times of utter loathing for your instrument. In Sampha’s case, there’s only perennial respect – he loved the piano so much he basically tried to ingest it. “My mum’s piano, I’ve scratched all over it, I literally just etched my name onto the side of it,” the Londoner tells us. “I even used to bite the keys. I put markings all over it. In that way, I’ve kind of disrespected the piano,” he laughs. “Wasn’t very nutritious. But I never hated it.” Sampha has produced, written and lent his vocals to an enormous range of top-tier artists (Beyonce, Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Solange, SBTRKT, FKA Twigs), but this is the first time he has written and recorded for himself, and the result is an immensely personal album full of bare lyrics and some really arresting rhythmic ideas – see Kora Sings , with its rim shots, deep tom booms and clipped snare, or single Blood On Me with its awesome metal-bell breakbeat. “I have a lot of Africa, Afro- beat influences, Brazilian Batucada…

to give it everything I’ve got,” he says. “Some people don’t need to do that much, some people can do anything. But I can’t drink, I can’t smoke, it’s really sensitive.” In behind-the-scenes clips you can see the man warming up; not just his voice but his entire body, with press-ups and on-the-spot jogging. (This is, in fact, how Sampha worked up the deliberately puffed-out quality to the opening phrases of Blood On Me .) Sampha has previously said he’s working on opening up to express feelings other than the melancholy which he was worried pervades his music. He admits that endeavour hasn’t been entirely successful, but he’s still working at it. “Sometimes I have a lot of ideas and goals and I end up just reverting back to [my defaults]… I’ve always got these challenges, and usually what happens is I kind of make music in the face of the frustrations I feel. So yeah, I feel like I haven’t quite made it.” As long as that means there's more to come, we're happy.

Notion EP by Tash Sultana is out now via Sony.

KEHLANI I t was a rocky childhood road and the heartbreaking rejection of her dream career which sculpted vocalist Kehlani, both in personality and in her innate understanding of soulful composition. Bound for R'n'B/

SweetSexySavage by Kehlani is out now via Warner.

soul royalty, Kelahni's powerful presence has hastened her into the limelight she deserves. After two highly regarded mixtapes, her debut album SweetSexySavage is coming out to play. This incredible creation encourages inner empowerment with songs of the most alluring essence. Savannah Douglas

08

FEBRUARY 2017

jbhifi.com.au