SOUNDTRACK: JORDAN RAKEI-Tiny Desk Concert #932 (January 13. 2020).
I’ve never heard of Jordan Rakei. I didn’t enjoy the first song of this Tint Desk, but that probably because I don’t really like “soulful R&B artists.” But the other songs are a bit more jazzy and fluid and I enjoyed them more.
It also seems like Tiny Desk sets that I don’t enjoy are longer than the ones I like. This one is four songs in 17 minutes–how do artists I’ve never heard of get more screen time than artists that Bob and Robin love?
The blurb is really glowing about the band and musically they are really tight.
The band opened with “Say Something,” from the group’s 2019 album, Origin. It’s a song that encourages people to take action and speak up for themselves.
It’s got a simple riff on the bass (Jonathan Harvey) and the guitar (Imraan Paleker). The main feature of this song seems to be the backing vocalists: Linda Diaz, Sam Wills and Opal Hoyt who dominate the song. I think this song just overstays its welcome since the “say something” refrain is sung about a hundred times.
They followed with “Mind’s Eye,” a commentary on technology that questions whether advancements are always a good idea.
I enjoyed the opening looping synth riffage (presumably from Jordan). Then it kicks in with a vaguely Latin rhythm with percussion from Ernesto Marichales and a cool drum pattern of rim shots from Jim Macrae. I liked this song a lot more. bothe because of the really interesting middle section with cool bass lines and swirling synths and guitar as Rakei switches to piano.
This song is jazzy and it segues into the even jazzier “Talk To Me,” from the group’s 2016 debut album, Cloak. I guess I prefer the clean piano sound and more sparing backing vocals on these two middle songs. The end is fun with just about everyone playing some kind of percussion instrument. Jordan sings something although i don’t know if it’s in another language or is just interesting sounds.
The final song “Speak,” was inspired by the TV show The Handmaid’s Tale, it imagines a world where nuclear war has left half the women infertile, as technology runs amok.
For this track it’s just him on piano. I thought i would enjoy him solo a bit more than with the band, but I don’t find this song all that interesting, so bring the percussion back!
[READ: January 18, 2020] “Protocol”
This was a strange story and I didn’t really understand what was happening for the most part.
The coolest part of the story is that it was a translation and translator David Short managed to write passages with a heavy British accent even though it was originally written in Czech. I can’t imagine what was happening in the original that would give a sentence like
An’ on top o’ that being a purveyor of love, ‘aving everyone ‘ang on till his death…
Of course, I have no idea why the character would have a heavy accent–it was never alluded to. In fact, I don’t know why any of this story was the way it was.
The story seems to be about people discussing Christ. What is one of his pals had been Římský, the baker who kicked the whore’s false leg and snapped it in two. And who gave some cops such a thrashing that they needed medical attention? Things would be better.
The ideas Christ espoused were thought of before he said them. –the quest for a refinement of emotion and libertinism. However, Christ studied among old Jews and did his translations of the Old Testament.
Then the story suddenly kicks into that dialect apparently about Jesus
a huge guy ‘e were, ‘andsome, one as knew ‘ow to handle women
From there it kind of drifts around things about Jesus but I’m not really sure what hes’ trying to say:
acting like a martyr for the sake of love
and
the trouble it takes to teach an idiot geography, geometry, sometimes the teacher don;t get it either.
It continues on like this for a bit and
It continues on for a bit and then says shifts gears somewhat to discuss missionaries crisscrossing the world wearing black caftans their chins not like Elijah but shaven clean:
They used to go around fulminatin’ in the whole time about love, not ‘ow to hug a girl, but like when some poor fellow’s short of a thing, one who’s got more than enough should let ‘im ‘ave some. That’s real love, not doin’ somersaults on a sofa.
But he follows this with
What bliss it is when a twenty-five year-old he runs into a twenty-year-old she it’s like a flower openin’
After blowing through the acrimony that happens between people, over who is better looking or smarter, he shifts again to
after all the world’s a big place and can feed twice as many people, so what’s the big deal if I eat my fill.
Finally he talks about nature
It’s that wretch nature that sets people against one another, an’ it drove Jesus crazy. Wearin’ clothes that’s the rule and colder climes, but where it’s hot they go naked an’ in places like that there’s no lechery like wi’ people who wear clothes, it tickles people’s fancy, she don’t know what he looks like, but folk with no clothes on don’t even notice each other, an’ among nations that go about naked there’s a lot less pickpocketin’. An’ so all things are governed by control of the emotions and passions and debauchery.
He concludes that Jesus’s weakness was wanting everything. He should have just been friends with a guy who used brute force.
Really I have no idea what this was about and i’m not willing to devote any more time to it.
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