LAFAWNDAH 'Ancestor Boy'

The debut full-length album from LAFAWNDAH, 'Ancestor Boy' via her own label imprint Concordia, is a bracing statement of intent, heralding an artist unbound in scope, scale, and intensity. Having in her prior self-titled and Tan EPs upturned geography, in 'Ancestor Boy' LAFAWNDAH digs deep to unravel geology, mining emotions of the deep past and future. The album’s physicality is elemental; its memory, mineral. It is a becoming-of-age story for a people yet to come, created out of a need to find the others. In the middle of the album’s sonic and lyrical onslaught is the desire to share the uncertainties of growing up when you don’t belong anywhere. Crafted with the aid of fellow travelers Nick Weiss, ADR, and L-Vis 1990, 'Ancestor Boy' maximalism-it’s overflow of detail, of feeling, of ideas- serves to amplify a frequent lyrical motif: the sensation that one body, one lifetime, isn’t big enough for what you’re feeling. The record is pregnant with memories shared across more than one mind, recalling the storytelling antagonisms of Nina Simone at her most strident and unpredictable. In response, the rhythmic aggressions of her music have grown even more determined and psychedelic, drawing a line in fire between Jimmy Jam’s turnt industrialism on 'Control' and the furious unease of Red Mecca-era Cabaret Voltaire. With a palate equal parts chrome and dirt, ice and depth, Lafawndah’s finesse with song architecture imbues the LP with an uncanny addictiveness: anthems loaded with trap doors. Ancestor Boy imagines a pop music that is neither imperial nor local, but a freedom of movement; a residue, perhaps, from the album’s nomadic creation between Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, London, and Paris.