D'Angelo - Voodoo

This record feels lived-in, because it is. Questlove and D’Angelo jamming in Electric Lady Studios all night, for hours and hours and hours, for years and years. God knows how many track recordings set to tape, where it all feels organic and never like they’re emulating a particular aesthetic. Obviously an ode to an age-old era of groove-based funk, but something completely new entirely. This album is, and always will be, one of one.

It certainly opened my mind to how this kind of music could be recorded. Back when Black Messiah was getting a tonne of buzz, I remember loading up Wikipedia to see what else I’d missed. Starting with the sweet sultry tones of Brown Sugar and jumping to this the next day was a stark contrast. As soon as The Line wove its way through my speakers, I was hooked. This slick, slinky almost-indecipherable bassline which simultaneously seemed to only hit a few notes, and yet run up and down the neck of the bass. These slowly moving looping drums with the crunchiest rim click ever put to tape. But the thing that struck me the most: D’Angelo wasn’t going anywhere in a rush. His buttery vocals at any range were three-man-weaving their way almost-inside the instrumentation, only responding to the music around it rather than driving the song forward with the vocals alone, like James Brown would grunt and scream in reaction to the Funky Drummer. This is music that wasn’t in a hurry, and let you live in its warm world for as long as you wanted.

To my amazement the other tracks followed suit, each with their own groove and particular feeling. Some snapped at a breakneck pace with drums clicking and light horns blaring, like Spanish Joint, and some tracks’ silence was just as important as the piano embellishments, like Untitled. And as time went on, and this thing got spun whether on record or digital, its exuding warmth poured through every time, and every piece of yarn felt necessary to the larger tapestry. D’Angelo knew he had an immense talent, and knew the right people to guide him through this slow, meticulous process over many years, honing in on a particular sound and over countless months of trial and error, narrowing it down to the moments that mattered. This record is an undeniable masterpiece, from an artist who took his time to build worlds, and only releasing that world until his seventh day. Rest in peace to an absolute one-of-a-kind: I’ll be spinning Voodoo again and again forever.