Warp presents Take Me Apart, the highly anticipated debut album from
contemporary R&B’s icon-in-the-making, Kelela. The long-awaited opus
arrives at the tail end of extended tours with The xx and Gorillaz and
scene-stealing guest spots as feature vocalist on a handful of crucial
records – from longtime ally Solange's majestic A Seat at the Table to
Warp’s gonzo rap star Danny Brown's immense Atrocity Exhibition and most
recently, the star-studded Humanz from Gorillaz.
Take Me Apart emerges as an epic portrait of an artist spanning the past and
future of R&B. In her hands, however, the genre knows no boundaries and so
Take Me Apart exists as an absolutely singular and fearless addition to a canon
of recent classics. From her very earliest work, honesty and vulnerability have
been cornerstones of Kelela's art – even when clad in the armor of the
avant-garde electronics she so deftly inhabits – and Take Me Apart sees her
double down on both the emotional intensity and resonance of her message as well
as the sonic seeking she is renowned for.
On 2015's acclaimed Hallucinogen EP, Kelela swept listeners along in the rush
of ecstasy and the melancholic vapor trail of a hopeful, but ultimately doomed
liaison. Hallucinogen would prove to be a turning point, and The New York Times
would name it's single, Rewind, one of the “25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music
Is Going”. The EP's oversized impact would ignite a period of kinetic
worldwide live shows.
These appearances would be tantalizing signs leading the way to Take Me Apart.
Amplifying the ideas explored on Hallucinogen, here Kelela treats relationships
and their effects like a Matryoshka doll, unveiling layer after layer to find
herself at the center. Expressing an honest vision of how we navigate dissolving
ties with each other and yet remain sanguine for the next chance at love, the
emotional ricochet is traced across the album's narrative. Take Me Apart stands
not only as an intensely personal chronicle, but also a defiant and turbulent
statement direct from Kelela; “Despite it being a personal record, the
politics of my identity informs how it sounds and how I choose to articulate my
vulnerability and strength. I am a black woman, a second-generation
Ethiopian-American, who grew up in the 'burbs listening to R&B, jazz and
Björk. All of it comes out in one way or another.”
The process of crafting Take Me Apart embraced the approach of widely
collaborative R&B, hip-hop and pop production while roaming a strange and
wonderful path. Working with a cast of peers, Kelela deconstructs many results
of their collaborations and builds them back up into pieces of a cohesive whole,
effectively orchestrating these multitudes in aid of her singular vision.
“It's this tapestry I've knitted together that attracts different types of
listeners and challenges them at the same time, often within the same song.
That's what I want to bring to my entire catalogue” says Kelela. Testament
to this approach, the album opens with a stunning trio of high points from the
low-slung mechanized swing of Frontline to the kaleidoscopic splendor of
Waitin – by which point you've been pulled straight into the tale Kelela is
weaving, and the warped and chaotic beauty of the title track before dropping
into Enough which sounds as if it could have been transmitted from a neon-lit
jazz club in Akira's Neo-Tokyo.
The timeless, zero-gravity ballad Better sees Kelela at her most unadorned –
baring her soul to a nameless other over subtly transforming piano and synth
textures while first single LMK is all staggering club swagger that manages to
span the past 20 years of innovative R&B while still exploring another
dimension of possibilities. These songs typify the melding of classic song-craft
and inventive production approach at the album's core, but it's here where
things take yet another exhilarating turn. Truth or Dare has the brittle snap
and vocal twists of a Neptunes track while Blue Light sees Kelela weld her
sweeping pleas to the warped sonic palette of grime, pointing the way forward to
a possible future of cybernetic soul.
Now we are swept into the slipstream of a pair tracks in On and On and the
otherworldly grandeur of Turn to Dust, which conjures images of the powerful and
iconic diva of Besson's The Fifth Element; and it's a short trip to the
unforgettable pneumatic gospel of album closer Altadena, a perfect uroboros link
back to Frontline to begin the saga all over again. At this point you're left
with the feeling that this trip through Take Me Apart is one you'll be making
many more times.
We are head over heels for this one – for those unacquainted, prepare to
enter into what is sure to become a lifelong romance.