- John-Paul Shiver goes deep on the Nottingham singer's stunning debut LP of R&B self-exploration.
- "I sat outside my body for a while so I could really feel alive," coos Yasmin Lacey on the intro to "Pass It Back," a slinky late-night jam from the East London native. It appears near the end of her debut album, Voice Notes, a project she describes as a sound collage representing where her life is right now. Where would that be?
Cashing in, finally—on all the potential for something so astronomically career-defining. Soul music aficionados have been waiting for two years and some change for this. Lacey's three previous EPs delivered glimpses of greatness on the horizon, but they were too short in length, or just missing something over-the-top to link her to the intergenerational greatness she's so clearly inspired by. In the past, Lacey has checked off genres like costumes quickly switched in and out of at the local community theater troupes' dressing room, but always rooted in soul.
Soul is the wellspring from which all these voices come. But titles can be limiting and just wrong. As a Black dude and semi-retired DJ from the US, I hear Ella, Betty Carter, Carmen McRae, Badu, Lauryn Hill and Sister Nancy traveling through this measured voice. Her instrument. She never pushes ahead of the tempo, but is constantly running on cool. Lacey is a less-is-more vocalist, and the back-end groove bedrock is her superpower. Lightly propelling her voice to get just a tad behind the beat is her flex—one that many try, but can't get down right.
Voice Notes, made with beatsmiths David Okumu, Melo-Zed and JD. Reid, is a digital sketchbook that fully inhabits its hour-long, 14-song cycle, making full use of all that space. Primed for summertime listening and some other activities, it's lined up with crosstown soul, by way of jazz foundations, hip-hop, sound system influences, lovers rock and funky pop. Whatever you want and could ever require from the progressive soul textbook is up in here. Darts, slaps, bops and most definitely thumpers, Lacey offers us a courtside seat through her own meditations and reflections.
"Pass It Back" works itself into a six-minute session where the basslines run long—"pocket as fuck" is what Terry Cole, owner of Colemine Records, would say. Drum shots hit with a certain energy, and Lacey moves her shoulders side to side, casting a spell in reverse: "Hold it up / Pass it back to you." You can feel some kind of Sade's "Turn My Back On You" unexpected jam energy running through it, delivering repetition, rhythm and cosmos in a 3 AM tone poem. The beat kicks off in a half-time slump and expands into a 4/4 pattern with echoes and voices flying over the groove. Lacey told Apple Music that she recast the spell of dark energy into the either-or, back to the oppressor, by "letting go of it all." That's where Voice Notes is—and what was missing from those previous EPs—that sacred space. Not outward, just a tad deeper.
On "Flylo Tweet," an album explainer of sorts, Lacey recounts the electronic music artist's philosophy of self-consciousness being a creativity killer, while a pensive, breezy soundtrack ripples in the background as if a tornado of conversations has inhabited the creative hub, making the process look and sound alive. "Bad Company" details a moment of self-doubt, naming her alter ego Priscilla, a demon on her shoulder who smokes up all her weed. "Late Night People" is another nocturnal jam, turns her perceptive pen towards the fleeting escape of a couple of hours of bass, libations and hopes—the Faustian bargain for a tiny glint of freedom peeks through between synth washes and red-cup house parties. "Sign And Signal" is an ode to looking for hopefulness in everyday experiences with a tempo change one-third in that literally embraces the funk, in song and in life, with Lacey cooing, "Show me a sign."
On occasion it is the passage of time, the shuffling of butterflies in the brain and spirit, that "reaching out on faith," a term my Mom still uses, that renders a greater reward than we could ever envision. Voice Notes gives us just that.
Tracklist01. Flylo Tweet
02. Bad Company
03. Late Night People
04. Fool's Gold
05. Where Did You Go?
06. Sign & Signal
07. From A Lover
08. Eye to Eye
09. Pieces
10. Pass It Back
11. Tomorrow's Child
12. Match In My Pocket
13. Legacy