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Avg: 3.5 (29 ratings)
- Date Released: April 29, 2008
- Genre: Hip-Hop/R&B
- Label: R2 Records / !K7 Records
A sister-from-another-planet soul singer drops a debut full of laid-back grooves and good vibes
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We Say...
Kissey Asplund is an undemonstrative singer, with an approach to melody that owes more to jazz than soul. She could be Kelis' baby sister in both vocal style and looks, though her debut, Plethora is less welcome-to-Mars and more good vibes and laid-back grooves. That's not to say that her music is in any way on-kilter. Half-singing/half-sonar beeping, Asplund seems to weave through her tunes, dipping only briefly into a song's center before sliding back out to the margins.
Produced by French hip-hop collective Papa Jazz Crew, Plethora's tracks anchor Asplund's sister-from-another-planet riffs. Acoustic piano and trumpet samples fade into drum & bass beats, as if filtered through a dirty fiber-optic channel somewhere beneath Paris. "You&I" starts out all Erykah Badu cool, as Asplund flutters along to a wheezy vintage synth, and ends with her in a multiple-personality sing-along. "Fuss'n'fight" is a bass-heavy plea to a lover to leave her — and the rest of the world — in peace. "Can't you see how my eyes fill with pain?" Asplund asks, as a Hammond keeps things smooth in the background. "Cool it. No need to pick a fight." The line inadvertently highlights Plethora's main lack: mood and tempo switch-ups. Groovy is great, but on Asplund's next release it would be gratifying for her and the Papa Jazzies to kick the beats around — and harder. After all, who wouldn't want to hear about Kissey's milkshake? Or the wacked-out, Swede-soul equivalent. -
They Say...
Like a number of tracks on Kissey Asplund's first album, "Beam Me Up" seems to materialize and evaporate rather than begin and end. Half of the time, the Swedish space cadet's either fading in and out of consciousness or singing in her sleep, her multi-tracked voice about as tangible as the aimlessly swarming waves of synths and dotted bass tones. There's more punch to the remainder of Plethora, laced in varying combinations by the French production team PapaJazz, who are -- like most other exponents of off-center R&B these days -- children of Dilla and Premier, but nothing is quite as hypnotizing as that song, even if it could use some Vulcan lute. Even on the most frictional track, "Fuss'n'fight," where crisply clipped percussion shards encircle lunar bass prods, Asplund darts in and out of the mix, sounding like she didn't want to disturb a cat napping nearby, even though she's delivering an admonishment. The neo-Guaraldi motif and PapaJazz audio logo that appear throughout the album are too cute to tolerate, but apart from those things, the album is obliquely fetching.
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| 01. |  |
still the baddest (intro) |
1:48 |
|
| 02. | |
Beam Me Up |
3:10 |
|
| 03. | |
Caos |
3:43 |
|
| 04. | |
You&I |
3:12 |
|
| 05. | |
Entrapped |
3:57 |
|
| 06. | |
Fuss'n'fight |
3:01 |
|
| 07. | |
Hit Me With Medication |
2:46 |
|
| 08. | |
6AM |
2:43 |
|
| 09. | |
Another Glass |
2:46 |
|
| 10. | |
Syntax Error |
2:40 |
|
| 11. | |
Phone Call |
3:13 |
|
| 12. | |
Work It Out |
2:59 |
|
| 13. | |
With You |
2:37 |
|
| 14. | |
I'm Out!!! |
1:12 |
|
14 Total Tracks, 39:47 Total Length
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Credits
- Walter Coelho - Mastering // Kyri Patsalides - Executive Producer // Simon Francis - Mastering
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