A truly moving and soulful elaboration of the life you live while you ponder today's realities. Slinky and languid. My type of reality as I assume today's responsibilities. Understated but so true. Like all of our lives .....
You could choose any number of songs from this languid, twinkly debut album to sum up King, an emerging LA soul trio. But it’s simplest to turn straight to The Greatest. From its antique computer game sonics, to its retro-futurist vibe, The Greatest sounds like very little of the genre out there today, unless we’re counting Daft Punk as a soul band. King’s three-way vocals are silken; their harmonies glisten. Moreover, The Greatest is a song in which three African American women – two sisters and a friend – declare their own awesomeness with casual grace.
Granted, the video borrows retro arcade-game graphics that reference boxing and, almost certainly, a previous incumbent of their title, but King’s words exude serene composure, not threat. “Who wants a run with the No 1?” they sing. If any sync agents are reading, The Greatest needs to soundtrack every televised sporting victory, ever, from now on.
Why are they called King? Because they rule. King write and produce their own music, on their own label. Paris Strother is the linchpin, writing, recording and arranging on a series of analogue keyboards; she went to Berklee College of Music and was mentored by Patrice “Forget Me Nots” Rushen. Strother’s twin sister Amber and friend Anita Bias complete the trio with their influences, rhythmic nous and dulcet tones.
King’s own victory run is a quiet, internet-age fairytale. In 2011 they put some songs up on Soundcloud. Before too long, their squelchy, idiosyncratic, time-capsule sound had gone, if not viral, then straight to all the right ears thanks to Twitter. Questlove, Erykah Badu and Prince declared themselves fans after King’s EP, The Story, came out. Stevie Wonder looms large in King’s sound, but a dreamlike, utopian ambience and psychedelic nuances – “We’re gonna keep on riding till we reach the mothership,” they crooned on The Story – complete the picture of a band out of time.
How many groups arrive fully-formed, with a sound that belongs entirely to them and nobody else? It’s a rare thing. And that’s what made KING, the Los Angeles R&B trio, so special when they self-released The Story, their three-song debut EP, in 2011. There was certainly something retro about the EP; it drew from the languid, blissful soul music of the ’70s and ’80s. But KING also brought a digital haze with them. Like the chillwave that was sweeping through indie rock at the time, they used technology to unmoor themselves from any sense of physical reality. The Story got endorsements from neo-soul veterans like Erykah Badu and ?uestove, who must’ve seen them as fellow travelers, and Prince invited them to open up an LA show for them. After that, they recorded the odd collaboration here and there, and they toured. Mostly, though, they disappeared. They went five years with only three songs to their name. And that whole time, as we can hear now, they were working.
As fully-formed as that EP might’ve been, We Are KING, the trio’s full-length debut, takes its ideas and pushes them even further. KING were glorious anomalies when they first showed up, and they now seem completely lost in time and space. Their music hits like a drug, with melting harmonies and digital basslines and vaporous smears of melody coming at you from all angles. Listening to them is like being smothered by a silk pillow with a luxuriously high thread count. Their music is thick and full and luscious. There’s no empty space anywhere in it, which means it’s different enough from most contemporary R&B that it might as well come from a completely different planet. This is music about love and languor and contentment, and it’s hard to imagine a better soundtrack for spending a sunny afternoon rolling around on a sunny living-room floor with someone you adore.
We Are KING includes extended, extra-zoned-out versions of the three songs from that first EP. When they show up, if you’ve spent enough time with that EP, they sound like old friends. But We Are KING isn’t an album of songs. Instead, it’s an extended-vibe sort of thing. The songs don’t seem to have concrete beginnings and endings. Instead, everything melts into everything else. This is a version of R&B that comes from jazz, rather than pop or gospel. The voices sing euphoric riffs and lose themselves intertwining in one another, and euphoric bursts of saxophone or keyboard will bubble up out of nowhere. Someone who knows more about soul music than me could tell you more about its influences, but I hear Minnie Riperton in full ecstatic-sprawl mode, as well as Prince at his squelchiest. But it also functions as a sort of ambient music, a cloud of sound that can make any room that much more pleasant. It’s a rare thing: An album that never makes any sort of immediate pop concessions but still sounds perfectly welcoming. You can hear their smiles when they’re singing. When was the last time you heard that on any album, in any genre?
And if the music feels aqueous and formless, that’s clearly the intent. Paris Strother, the group’s producer, played just about every instrument on We Are KING. Anita Bias, who handles the vocals alongside Paris’ twin sister Amber, studied at Berklee College Of Music. These women clearly know what they’re doing. They spent years working on this album carefully, whittling away at it until it had exactly the sound they wanted. And that was time well-spent. Nobody else sounds like this.
This accurately self-termed electro-soul trio debuted in 2011 with an EP that resembled reinterpretations of imaginary recordings made by Wonderlove, Stevie Wonder's background vocalists, circa Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. All three songs, measured and spirit-lifting in nature, radiated warmth through rich harmonies and crafty programming. Supported by the likes of Erykah Badu and Questlove, King's impact was instant. Within a year, they elevated cuts by the Foreign Exchange and Robert Glasper Experiment. Additional singles trickled out slowly, surely. The trio likewise didn't spread itself thin when it came to further collaborations, highlighted by "Right at the Core," Paris' smoldering duet with Bilal. Almost five years after their first step, the Strothers and Bias released their slow-cooked We Are King. For those who have been aware since the beginning, the album might seem anticlimactic. Only seven of the 12 inclusions are completely fresh. The 2011-2014 output, however, is cleverly dispersed throughout the sequence, with all of the EP cuts appearing as extended versions that enhance flow. Most of the new tracks are up to the high bar they set for themselves. Three of better ones -- two floating love songs leaving it all behind and a proud, percolating tribute to Muhammad Ali -- are emphasized with front-loading. King don't take a caravan across the Sudan, but "Red Eye," in which they "fly through the Nigerian night sky," makes a clear connection with the Jones Girls of "Nights Over Egypt," and continues their recurring spiritual and/or romantic journeys theme. They even present the album's finale, "Native Land," as a cunning sequel to "The Story," and land at home. The flashiest they get is with a monologue, some horns, and a guitar solo, all of which appear on the hot-pursuit ballad "Oh, Please!" Otherwise, We Are King is all about plush, impeccable grooves and spine-tingling harmonies. It's without fault.
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