Sexy Stunner!
Review: "Blame It on the Mango"
Durand Bernarr

There's only a handful of contemporary singers making the real magic these days, and Durand Bernarr is one of them.  His torch is lit and he's keeping the flame for the elders: CK, SW, EWF, et al, etc, etc, etc... This is a sexy stunner of an album. His vocals are stellar, the writing thoughtful and thought provoking, the production and arranging deeply imaginative. Durand stretches the boundaries of his vocal universe as far as he possibly can. 72 Hours took me right on in from the git-go and Yet sent me over the edge.  I blame it on the mango too. Get it now!

5-5-2015

Map to Chapel Hill, TN

SO RICH AND BEAUTIFUL

B. SLADE - My September Reissue

by Michael Mishaw

Where do I start?  This album is like a rich, nourishing, delicious meal: complex with bold flavors and subtleties, exquisitely prepared, to be taken in several courses.  After the first full listen, I had to push away to digest it, even though I didn't want to stop "eating".

I can't pick a favorite--whichever song I am listening to at the time is my favorite.  So I'll start with "Transitional Rug", since I just finished hearing it.  The chorus chant, with its oblique two-part harmony and steady vibrato, is mysterious and hypnotic, yet anchored in terra and humor by pet dog Chance's barking on the backbeat.  The phrase "that's what we kept sayin' when we was up in the club", recalling an intimate meeting of the minds between lovers, has turned into a lament of longing and regret, whereas it had once been an expression of joy and delight in "Diana Prince" (Stunt B%$@h, 2013).

Every album should have one scary song.  Not Halloween scary, but human-relationship-emotion scary, and this one, "Hatfield McCoy", is a waking nightmare.  The title alone lets us know we're in for a war. There's angry distorted guitars, up-in-the-ozone pitched vocalizing, shouting, screaming, and cursing.  In this moment Mr. Slade is pissed, being forced to battle double standards: his lover's faulty accusations, followed up with the lover's restrictions on his anger, on his ability to express that anger, and on his defenses and counter-accusations.  "When you switch the rules, I can't stand that shit.... when you judge my moods, I can't stand that shit.... but you can say or do whatever you want."  The war escalates beyond fever pitch, obliterating any recollection of how or why it started.

"Yen and Sorrow" is the new "Add Me Up" (A Brilliant Catastrophe-alpha, 2010) with its sedate, near-resigned, "what is the reason I'm here" vocal approach.  Everything he once held high and thought was true, now seems lost or changing through the days following his desperate survival mode in the heartbreaking "Room 622".  How to get back to feeling sure of what one knows?  How to eat and keep a roof overhead? How to go on living?  "Yen" gives me Marvin Gaye--life questioning Marvin with his internal battles of sacred/profane, survival/existentialism.

The title song expands the original play on words of 2013's My September Issue: issue also meaning an album release, and re-issue also being a re-visiting and clarification of an emotional issue.  This song takes me back to some of the older great artists like Earth Wind & Fire and Kate Bush, who would balance the heartbreak with hope in their album closer: hopeful yet not naive, realistic yet not cynical.  Musically it could easily be someone's TV or movie theme.  I mean this is the best way.  Just check the syncopated vocal line "this is my Sept...September re-is-sue..." punctuated by a glottal, percussive "Ha!" every few beats, especially when it strips down to a cappella.  You'll start the song over right away.

B. Slade's art extends even to his release date of September 19.  For me, this album is made especially for fall.  It's about loss, and processing it: loss of love, loss of summer to autumn--deaths of a sort.  Mr. Slade takes us around and back through the five grieving stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  You can feel the fall season in this music.  I hear the reds, golds, oranges and rusts--I hear the different angle of the sun.  The summer-to-fall season change is usually a challenge for me, and "My September Reissue" is a welcome, new transitional tool.  And hopefully, like summer, the love also returns... maybe in three years... or five years...

I agree with another reviewer that art presents life and life presents art on this record.  Song after song after song, Mr. Slade turns the stone over, revealing yet another angle, yet another side to the story.  He has outdone himself.  This is great, meaty, textbook material for those wishing to do serious vocal, songwriting, arranging, or production study.

I love this record.  The only thing missing is a link to the lyrics so we can read along.  Seven stars.*******

Michael Mishaw

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PERFECT ONE

I don’t know about this life

I can guess as much as you

If you feel you’re getting’ it right

Then I celebrate with you

Just don’t punish me tomorrow

‘Cause I try a different path

That you don’t understand

Let me have my joys and sorrows,

My own tears and my own laughs,

Not second hand, cause,

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

We have Buddah, Jesus, Allah, Neter, Eck and Dervishes

We have every kind of teacher, guru, starchild and prophet

Maybe some of them can help us

Maybe some of them can hurt, it’s tricky to tell

We have nothing, we have all things

We give everything its worth: my heaven, your hell

I can only tell you one thing:

My own history from birth

I know it so well, and,

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

Per-fect per-fect per-fect per-fect, per-fect per-fect per-fect per-fect

Per-fect per-fect per-fect per-fect, per-fect per-fect per-fect per-fect

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

© 2008 MichaeLedonMusic (BMI)

FRIEND AGAIN

New life, new reason for living

I thought the reasons were gone

I stepped out of line, I stepped on a friend

Before I knew I’d done wrong

She put me on hold for awhile

I thought it might be forever

Then she came back around with a smile

And now I’ll never say never

Never again

I got my friend today, I can begin today, life can be good

I got my friend again, we can begin again just as we should

What is joy? What is gladness?

I think I’m starting to know

It’s having a pal, a peer through this madness

To help you learn and to grow

If I think I see strings attached

I don’t care, they’re not ropes

I put my scissors away, they’re no match

For common threads of desire, for ties of hope

I got my friend today, I can begin today, life can be good

I got my friend again, we can begin again just as we should

I thought it ended when I got my friend again, who’d think I would?

I learned, by almost losing, what is my silver and gold

And somewhere I read that you can’t fear what you love with your soul

And those I hold precious I’ll keep

Through difference and disagreement

And when troubles arise I won’t sleep

Till we bury them in the cement, to never return!

I got my friend today, I can begin today, life can be good

I got my friend again, we can begin again just as we should

I thought it ended when I got my friend again, who’d think I would?

I got my friend again, so glad I’m in again, forgiveness is good

Friend….friend….friend….friend

Friend….friend….friend….friend

© 2008 MichaeLedonMusic (BMI)