Fatima - And Yet It's All Love

  • The Eglo artist's catchy yet complex soul sound matures on her second LP.
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  • It only takes a couple of listens to start singing along with And Yet It's All Love, the second album from the Eglo artist Fatima. Where her breakthrough LP, Yellow Memories, impressed with its unorthodox approach to modern soul, the follow-up lands on a more modest, immediate sound that still oozes personality. She's assembled a mostly fresh production team for her latest LP, though she's retained the hip-hop beatmaker Flako. Having contributed two tracks to Yellow Memories, his increased prominence on And Yet It's All Love helps give the LP a more modern-sounding palette. There aren't flashy maneuvers like there were on "La Neta," which switched tempos and time signatures, stuffing 20-minutes' worth of ideas into six. The level of musicianship here is still high, but the focus is on making moving, memorable songs. All great singers, or rather, the ones who write their own music, have musical trademarks. There are motifs that crop up in many of Fatima's vocal melodies. What makes them uniquely hers is their jazzy ambiguity—instead of simple minor or major keys that might reference single-note emotions, her weird harmonies often suggest a tense counterbalance of conflicting feelings. "Attention Span Of A Cookie" is sexy, sassy and even a little sad, with strange minor intervals offset by a fun bassline. When a songwriter gives voice to that tension—not just multiple emotional notes but the semitones between them—that's when you start to hear the messy magic of real life. The LP has a wide range of moods, painting a lively and dynamic portrait of Fatima as a person. There are the hooky singalongs that DJs will love, like "Westside," "Caught In A Lie" and "Attention Span Of A Cookie," which benefit from the album's bass-boosted production. There are moments of audacious self-empowerment ("So Rite"), slow-burning sensuality ("Dang"), manic energy ("I See Faces") and clear-headed confidence ("May I"). There are curveballs where the album gently swerves off-piste, such as "Waltz," which is indeed a waltz, with its pum-pum bassline and sparkly fairytale synths. She closes out the album with the title track, and it's Fatima at her most virtuosic—not only does she have style and grace, but the vocal chops to bring all of her notes to life.
  • Tracklist
      01. Only 02. May I 03. Dang 04. Westside 05. Attention Span Of A Cookie 06. I See Faces In Everything 07. Take It All feat. Roc Marciano 08. Somebody Else 09. Caught In A Lie 10. Waltz 11. So Rite 12. Movie 13. Note To Self 14. And Yet It's All Love
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