Voodoo

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I can't ever remember waiting for an album as eagerly as I've awaited this one. RnB singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter D'Angelo released his debut album Brown Sugar four years ago; since then, a couple of collaborative singles and nothing more. Frankly it's been too long. Brown Sugar emerged amidst a lot of talk about Nu Classic Soul, a movement at once drawing on all the elements of great 70s soul music while at the very least acknowledging the existing of contemporary 90s RnB and hip-hop. But while the movement's best talents - Erykah Badu, Maxwell, Tony! Toni! Tone! and, more recently Macy Gray and Lauryn Hill - all made some fine music, for my money the only album which came even close to Brown Sugar's ambition was the woefully-overlooked eponymous debut by sometime North Londoner and prog-sessioneer Lewis Taylor (from whom since, regrettably: nada). So Voodoo's got a lot to live up to; that it outstrips all expectations is remarkable. Let's put it plainly, upfront: Voodoo is a masterpiece. From the opening moments - a recording of (maybe) a Haitian voodoo ceremony that slips into a the lilting funk of Playa Playa - it's obvious that we're in for something special - but also something genuinely strange. D'Angelo's frequently compared to Marvin Gaye, but even at his furthest out (on the Trouble Man soundtrack or on the Leon Ware production I Want You) Gaye didn't explore the dark complexities hidden in RnB quite as fearlessly as D'Angelo. Whole choruses pass by with their lead vocal fractionally out of sinc with the backing track; a flipped guitar line will spiral, for no apparent reason, from left to right; oddly gasping horn stabs punctuate songs when you least expect them. Close up, the effects are utterly disorientating, but then that's the point. Voodoo is a total trip: 80 minutes of deeply sexual narcosis. And dark. "Ain't no justice/Just Us," he sings, "Ashes to ashes/Dust to Dust." Quite. Soul music is always associated with sex, but not so often with nihilism; D'Angelo uneasily maps out their common ground. Not since Prince suggested that we party like it's 1999 has a soul singer so emphatically suggested that we fuck to spite our despair. Once again, the bulk of the playing here is D'Angelo's own, but what collaborators he's chosen are spot on. The virgin-tight funk drumming throughout is the work of Ahmir Khalib-Thompson, aka ?uestlove?,leader of The Roots, whose conscious, intelligent rap has been making serious underwound waves since 1993’s independently released Organix. Elsewhere, Method Man and Redman add edgy raps to Left & Right. And those horn arrangements in particular are stunning, thanks to jazzers Charlie Hunter & Roy Hargrove. Will Voodoo make any more fans for D'Angelo than Brown Sugar? I'm not so sure. But when the dust has settled, it'll be impossible for any soul music fan with ears not to recognise D'Angelo for what he is: a genius RnB auteur not only in the tradition of James Brown, Stevie Wonder and Prince, but their equal, too. The wait was worth it.