Zaki Ibrahim

I've been feeling Zaki (South African/Canadian singer) for a while now - "Heart Beat" (or strictly speaking the Nick Holder remix of same) is a classic, and I loved the eerie stepping vibes of "Something In The Water" from the end of last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtZd2uimcuI

http://vimeo.com/29851243

Anyways, new album Every Opposite. Some of it sounds awesome (, some I'm not sure about. It reminds me most of all of Nona Hendryx's Skin Diver in its lush kitchen sink melange of R&B / world / kate bush ish art-pop. But with somewhat jazzy vocals and occasional post-dubstep production influences.

Includes both of the above tunes, which is where I'd start.

Oh god, I love this vocal so much. Gives me shivers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S6N7g-C5gI&feature=related

oh i noted a couple of people whose taste i trust talking about her on twitter the other day, intend to check this out when i have time

I have decided this album is fully excellent. At times it strikes me as being like The Sensual World crossed with Love Deluxe maybe.

Another way to pigeonhole Zaki would be as the Commonwealth Janelle Monae, but she lacks some of the pleasures and many of the pitfalls of Janelle's work - her occasional theatricality def. feels more earnest, more attached to the underlying emotion she wishes to convey rather than being stylised and so invested in performance qua performance.

This album!

I was suspicious of this tune at first but now I think it's fantastic:

http://vimeo.com/34138924

Still loving this album. Wake up ILM.

http://zakiibrahim.bandcamp.com/

link might have been helpful!

it's a really good listen but hasnt quite stuck for me

think possibly another side of that track-focused theatricality u correctly pinpoint is that you then end up with an album of discrete entities that don't seem to quite gel as a unit. i mean it's obvious there is a flow and narrative between the songs but i find myself having to stir from vibesing out and remind myself of it, rather than things coming naturally

tangential but i remember when i felt "soulful house" circa 2009 was particularly fecund thinking there were so many nice standalone songs, i wonder what it'd be like if someone like monique bingham (more skilled and charismatic a performer than so many popular nu-soul divas) did an album. realised it probably wouldnt really work in any useful way

Tim, I am trying to wake up, as a matter of fact. Threw my sleep schedule off this week. I like (not necessarily love) the tracks you posted earlier in the thread and will check the album out.

Glad you checked it out!

think possibly another side of that track-focused theatricality u correctly pinpoint is that you then end up with an album of discrete entities that don't seem to quite gel as a unit. i mean it's obvious there is a flow and narrative between the songs but i find myself having to stir from vibesing out and remind myself of it, rather than things coming naturally

I kind of ignore the narrative - really the only thread is Zaki's vocals for the most part. I know what you mean though; these are also songs that I have to go to somewhat rather than have them just come to me (because they otherwise can just drift by pleasantly, a bit), but there's been a lot of times in the past where that process has resulted in the album being an absolute favourite so I'm not holding it against Zaki yet. Esp. because bits of (the og) "Heart Beat", "Black & Grey", "Kids Are Talking", "Stand So Hard", "The Brave Ones" will pop into my head when I'm not listening.

I'm a little puzzled by the almost complete lack of (ILX) response to this album. I've put up some links to her videos on other boards and gotten few bites.

I do find that when I listen to this, my attention wanders at a certain point, but there are enough good songs here that it's one of the better albums I've heard from this year (although, for whatever reason, I haven't been feeling too much from this year).

(Has Tuomas heard this, for example? I somehow can't imagine him not liking it.)

I guess I'd say it drops off for me from "Stand So Hard" on, or maybe even with "Go Widdit." But none of it is bad exactly, just a bit slack. "Conjure" especially drags for me. It comes back with the Heart Beat remix at the end, but that doesn't even feel like part of the flow of the album.

i really like the first half of this. it's taking me a bit longer to get into it beyond "the do." but man, that first half is something else. "heart beat" is an especially potent example of how well the music suits the ideas behind them. the beat just carries you away, it's so fluid and catchy. i just love how she interrupts it all by repeating the lines "you are... my heart." like love or that feeling welling up inside so much that it's interrupting itself.

Bump.

New single preview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dljlm9hMCZI

New album: The Secret Life of Planets.