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Of The Heart, Of The Soul and Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience

by

P.M. Dawn

 
Of The Heart, Of The Soul and Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience
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Hip-hop that longed to capture its sense of utopian spirituality in a lush sonic expanse.

  • We Say...

    Review by Keith Harris

    As a rule, hip-hop is awfully hard on genuine romantics. Sure, some glib pillow-talk is recognized as a necessary means to a fine rear end. And its countless melodramatic gangster fantasias romanticize teen machismo plenty themselves. But an outright aesthete like Prince Be, draped in his hippie caftan, infatuated with rainbows, riding the rhythms of the crashing surf, and celebrating Spandau Ballet's "True" as a thing of pure beauty — well, let's just say the guy aroused a few suspicions. KRS-One even bum rushed a show to shove Be offstage, after the Prince questioned the Teacher's credentials. In fact, Be could be confrontational in his own oblique way — "Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine" offers a backhanded slap to the streetwise ethos, and "Comatose" disses the unthinking masses — but mostly, his heart is as soft as his gut. Maybe you remember "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" as a novelty fluke — actually, it barely hinted at a singular pop vision that, from its "Intro" ("I'd like to say what's up to God") through the transcendental dance number "Shake" ("Everyone get out of your bodies"), longed to capture its sense of utopian spirituality in a lush sonic expanse — a path no less worthy for its being subsequently less-traveled.

  • They Say...

    Review by Steve Huey, All Music Guide

    It may not have been embraced by the entire hip-hop community, but P.M. Dawn's ponderously titled debut Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience was a startling reimagination of the music's possibilities. In the post-De La Soul age, hip-hop seemed open to all sorts of eccentrics, but P.M. Dawn was still difficult for purists to accept: They were unabashed hippies whose sound and sensibility held very little street appeal, if any. Of the Heart... is soaked in new age spirituality and philosophical introspection, and a song title like "To Serenade a Rainbow" is likely to raise eyebrows among more than just skeptical b-boys. It's true that there's some occasional sappiness and navel-gazing, but it's also true that the group's outlook is an indispensable part of its musical aesthetic, and that's where Of the Heart... pushes into the realm of transcendence. It still sounds revolutionary today, although you'd have to call it a Velvet Revolution: It's soft and airy, with ethereal vocal harmonies layered over lush backing tracks and danceable beats. The shimmering ballads "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" (built on an unlikely sample of Spandau Ballet's "True") and "Paper Doll" were the hits, but they aren't quite representative of the album as a whole. Some tracks, like "Comatose" and "A Watcher's Point of View (Don't 'Cha Think)," are surprisingly funky and driving, and there's also an even more explicit nod to the dancefloor in the Todd Terry hip-house collaboration "Shake." The more reflective raps ("Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine," "Even After I Die," "In the Presence of Mirrors") strike a fascinating balance between those sensibilities, and there's still little else like them. In the end, Of the Heart... is enormously daring in its own way, proving that pop, R&B, and hip-hop could come together for creative, not necessarily commercial, reasons.

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