A.T.L
I loved the original songs and the new versions are great too. The string instruments are emotive and interesting and the new vocals are gorgeous.
Favorite track: In Your Eyes (Reflection).
Getting right in your eyes
Spitting right in your eyes
Does my body divide?
Was my body denied?
Ooh, I can see what’s in your eyes
No, I can’t be what’s in your eyes
Tell me, what do you have to say?
Have you always been this way?
I can’t run and I can’t hide
Was my body denied?
I don’t know
Ooh, I can see what’s in your eyes
No, I can’t be what’s in your eyes
Ooh, I can see in your eyes
Ooh, I can’t be in your eyes
I live in my own home
I live in my paper
The absence becomes me
A reticent spectre
Oh, why don’t you do as you’re told?
Oh, happiness isn’t your goal
I’m not a just a boy, I’m a man
I’m not just a man, I’m a god
I’m not just a god, I’m a maker
No country for crazy
But thank you for asking
My markings and makings
Belong in the trash bin
Oh, why don’t you do as you’re told?
Oh, happiness isn’t your goal
I’m not a just a boy, I’m a man
I’m not just a man, I’m a god
I’m not just a god, I’m a maker
Mind your maker
Have you ever seen anything quite like this?
Have you ever known anything quite like this?
Have you ever done anything quite like this?
Have you ever seen anything quite like this?
I was a little cross
I was a little cold
I was a little lost
Dead to me truth be told
Dead to me truth is
In the light, you’re a miracle to behold truly
In the night, it’s a miracle to be held by you
What today can I make inside of my heart for you?
Bold and bright, I could fall asleep in your love
Sing to me mother’s grace
Give to me mother’s trust
I’ve never seen her face
But I think she looks like us
I think
I’m ashamed of the awful things I have done to you
What today can I make inside of my heart for you?
In the sweetest and deepest part of my soul, you are
Bold and bright, I could fall asleep in your love
Happening, it’s happening
I’m alive - I am not so gone as I thought, oh god
I am loved, I am learning how to receive loving
Are you real? Are you something out of a dream from me?
Bold and bright, I could fall asleep in your love
In the light, you’re a miracle to behold truly
In the night, it’s a miracle to be held by you
What today can I make inside of my heart for you?
Bold and bright, I could fall asleep in your love
about
If each song on Anjimile Chithambo’s introspective 2020 debut, Giver Taker, was its own self-contained micro-journey of grief, hope, and identity, then their subsequent orchestral Reunion EP is fitting as a homecoming. It’s almost an extension, or sequel, to the ideas of rebirth Chithambo began excavating last year -- a simultaneous resettling into, and reimagining of, their songwriting.
Reunion features airy, emotive string compositions from the Los Angeles-based musician and composer Daniel Hart, known for his work with bands like Polyphonic Spree and St. Vincent, as well as his film scoring work for Pete’s Dragon and A Ghost Story. Here, Anjimile’s songs are built out with violins and guest vocalists. Fellow indie musicians Jay Som, SASAMI, and Lomelda lend their voices to the three tracks, which also feature the same backing vocals from major Giver Taker collaborator Justine Bowe of Photocomfort. The framework of Anjimile’s pastoral, compelling songs blooms into something cinematic and swelling on this EP, a loving and hopeful tangle of discovery.
Chithambo was struck by the new interpretations of his songwriting, the way they resonated with him, and the feeling of hearing a truthful translation of your own words through someone else’s delivery. He explains of his collaborators: “Their sensitive and thoughtful interpretations of these songs gives me the feeling that we're connected, and that we know each other on a deeper level - the same internal place from which music moves us all.”
Jay Som’s “In Your Eyes” feels like looking into a mirror, and the sensation of truly being seen for what you are by another person. It’s the original song taken and gently shifted to her point of view. “Maker,” as handled by SASAMI, skews psychedelic, a tangle of phased-out vocals and disorientingly beautiful harmonies; she takes Anjimile’s songwriting and refracts it through her own artistic lens. And Lomelda’s “1978” is strikingly tender. For Anjimile, Lomelda’s take feels like the original song being brought to its purest essence of sweet, sad hopefulness - which rings through in Lomelda’s singing like the clearest bell.
It also speaks to the striking honesty of Chithambo’s lyrics and songwriting, and its ability to resonate so deeply, regardless of form. Even when sung from a different mouth and made anew, the music is still distinctly Chithambo’s voice.
For Chithambo, hearing their songs anew felt like some sort of metaphysical reunion between themself and SASAMI, Jay Som, and Lomelda. The EP also marks a reunion for Chithambo and their beloved label, Father/Daughter, as well as the reunion with their close friend and collaborator Bowe, while binding together songs from Giver Taker in a new form.
“I think of reunions as something either explicitly celebratory: family reunion, holiday, wedding, a joyful event -- or something explicitly elegiac, like a funeral or memorial,” Chithambo explains. “I feel like this dichotomy is a subtle nod to the dichotomy of human existence & human emotionality that Giver Taker suggests.”
credits
released May 7, 2021
String arrangements by Daniel Hart
Mastered by Sarah Register
Art by Aaron Lowell Denton
Just a beautiful jazzy rap album with buttery smooth flows versed with huge talent. It's not only lovely to the ears, but the lyrics are profound and empowering about the struggles that she faces. zhangtastic
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