I first saw her on last year's Glastonbury TV footage, with just one acoustic song ('Battle Cry'), which we recorded along with a load of other stuff. We weren't familiar with her but Mr SDS and I are open-minded to something different. We liked it but didn't really think too much more about it until playing it back some time later, when there was something about the acute conviction of her performance that reeled us in and the song itself stayed with us both. Later still Mr SDS investigated a couple of other tracks online which sounded good. So, last week, he bought the album 'Dirty Gold'.
I was out on the day that it arrived in the post. When I got back home, I asked him if he'd played it and how he liked it. “I'm knackered,” he replied. “It's so intense, I feel like I've been through it. But in a good way...” It's a while since anyone's album has done that to either of us. It used to be the case with, oh let me think.. Joy Division... Crass... Babes In Toyland. You know the kind of thing, when a collection of tracks are so angry, angsty, personal, sad, confessional or whatever, that you feel a little drained when it's all over.
It would be easy to define Angel Haze by her rapping, and equally easy to perhaps think, “But I don't like rap so I won't like this” but there's so much more to this than her obvious talent for articulating rhyming couplets at high speed. The varied and often lush instrumentation throughout the album, her sweeter melodic vocals that complement the harder edges, some ethereal effects and an evident lack of compromise (which I fear may not be so evident in time if marketing types get their way) put me more in mind of Neneh Cherry, Tricky, Massive Attack. Then on reading about her and appreciating her quite shocking background I can understand why listening to the album has the effect it does, and that that's no bad thing.
Here's an interview from The Guardian which explains a little more.
I must commend my husband on his latest purchase!
Angel Haze: Dirty Gold (from the album Dirty Gold)
Angel Haze: Deep Sea Diver (from the album Dirty Gold)
Angel Haze: acoustic performance of Battle Cry, Glastonbury 2014
As you say C pretty intense - I'm not sure I would have the strength and energy to sit through an entire album in one sitting.
ReplyDeleteWhat a horrific back story - understandably she still bears the scars but hopefully her music is helping her recovery
You're right CC, it's easier to listen to in instalments really!
DeleteI'll be interested to know where she goes from here and how she'll be received. As I mentioned in the post, I'm somewhat cynical about how the marketing types may want to package her.
More Pentecostals!
ReplyDeleteI can't help it but, I reflexively detach from emotional confessional performances like this...I have to focus on the music and cadence. I could have heard these songs and not realized how personal they were...if you hadn't pointed it out. I like the songs though.
It's the Baptist Church that did it to me...while not as emotionally flamboyant as some strains of Pentecostals...there were the regular "testimonials"...just watching grown men cry like that. I just remember wanting to get under the cushions on the pews for embarrassment. It's got a lot to do with us being Anglicans now.
Crap. I thought I left a comment.
ReplyDeleteDoh. There it is.
DeleteCoincidental Pentecostals, ooh what's happening?!
DeleteI know what you mean about detaching and just focusing on the music. I suppose I've given her a different introduction here to the one I experienced myself, because I had no idea about her back story until *after* I'd heard three separate tracks, and certainly a long time after the Glastonbury performance had caught my attention and I was already impressed. Knowing it now though sort of helps frame the music for me and certainly helps to make the album's harsher moments make sense.
I feel your embarrassment re. the Baptist church! Whilst as you know I'm not religious I flirted with it around the age of 12/13 due to having friends who were, and I had an experience at a Baptist church which put me off for life and actually made me very anti it all. Maybe I'll write about that some time?!
Also tying in with the hippy theme over at your place, you've been an inspiration to me today and if I can find the right moment and words to write about it I'll post something here in due course.
Always happy to see your comments, Erik, so three for the price of one is alright by me :-)
Have another then. :)
DeleteBaptist Churches are like Pentecostal churches in being congregational. There's no official structure no episcopacy. There are groups and associations. So like the first baptist church of Jackson is a very mainline, almost country club kinda place...but you can find Baptist churches that are really emotive and dramatic. There's even some foot washers out there. Outside of a few theological principles ...you don't know what yer gonna get when you walk through the door.
Pentecostals are even more diverse. Like I said in post they can be very rocknroll, passin out, tongue wagging or they can be anti music and dancing. As a direct reaction to the others. They can also get hung up with "prophets" ..sounds like angel may have been in one of those. They are outsides' outsiders.
Looking forward to it. Make it work maam.
I'm afraid I have an almost violently physical reaction of repugnance to all that OTT stuff you describe! I cannot handle it all. I had to go to a friend's 'happy clappy' wedding once and I was ready to bolt out the door. I felt sick.. but I don't know quite what that says about me! I find it all very very strange.
DeleteI don't seem to be able to write much at the moment, so don't hold your breath... On the other hand it may just come together out of the blue, who knows!
I'm always going to irrationally take a dislike to the aural and visual experience of a 'dude' in a Glastonbury field strumming along on an acoustic guitar to someone rapping, no matter how clever those lyrics may be. I can just imagine Edith Bowman or Jo Wiley patronising the performer and the audience with an idiotic comment or three. However, the tunes from the album certainly are intense. I like her style, which isn't a million miles from Eminem. The 'soulful' singing I can do without as it's bit smooth and modernist for me. If she's not careful, the corporates will destroy her like they did Ms Dynamite. One to watch.
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear your view, SB, as I'm intrigued to know what people think of her. I'm feeling less and less inclined to listen to material I already know and from the past, and more and more open to something new, but at one time I think I would have dismissed her and her music out of hand, particularly the Glastonbury clip. Instead it reeled me in. Funny how we change.
DeleteI feel the same about the corporates.. and that she is one to watch... I do hope that she has a bright future, but away from the mainstream. I believe she wants to sing more and rap less, which may not necessarily be a good thing - we'll see!
Not great rap lover but I did like Deep Sea Diver, she certainly has the intensity which I like and she does seem like 'the real thing' , as SB says definately one to watch. Can't remember last CD I actually bought...I would probably download...or use Spotify....so clinical but convenient....gone has the pleasure of opening, holding and reading and treasuring....music is not a possession any more.
ReplyDeleteI like that like line, music is not a possession any more!!!!
ReplyDeleteGood to know you like Deep Sea Diver too, Old Pa. I was looking back through the links from that interview in the Guardian and see she was touted by them as 'one to watch' back in September 2012... so perhaps we have a slow, but hopefully bright, burner here?
DeleteWe still 'possess' music in this household! When we buy a physical CD it's like an honour to it... it's like loving it enough to want to actually hold it ;-)
My goodness, what a life she's had. I'm very impressed by the two studio recordings, intense and full of ideas. A new name to me and one I'll follow up on.
ReplyDeleteThanks TS, I've found this really interesting to see how she's gone down here, as I know you listen to a lot of varied music! I'm also impressed on having just heard her recent single, which was only released in Feb of this year: Candlxs. I'll be v interested to hear what may follow too.
DeleteHello. I usually refrain from commenting on other people's tastes in music. Last time I did it was at work with some guy who interviews all these Metal-type bands on a YouTube channel and we were talking about Canadian bands. I advised him to listen to a Canadian band called Fucked Up and a song of theirs called Queen Of Hearts. Check it out, you may think it's wonderful?: https://youtu.be/syg6XGbdUkM?list=PLeD_5vL1u4lMzfmSEw1ZbdHfWmYw2ZYI3 and he told me to listen to some other band I forget the name of. When he asked me what I thought of his favoured band when I saw him next I said they were the kind of band you want to pour petrol over and throw lit matches at. I was joking! But he hasn't spoken to me since. I think he was offended.
ReplyDeleteBut anyway. Regarding Angel Haze I couldn't quite place who she reminded me of until reading the above comments when Ms Dynamite was mentioned. That's who I was thinking of. And what happened to her? It reminded me of MIA, also. And even early Tricky. These reference points are, of course, very good ones but I'm with you in thinking what is actually interesting about Angel Haze will be varnished over by any bid to get her into the mainstream. The backing music to her vocals actually compliments her lyrics, I thought. It didn't immediately grab me and make me want to explore more, unlike say Die Antwoord did at one time (again check them out on YouTube if you don't know them) but I'm happy to have her highlighted to me. So thanks for that, C. Maybe she's one of those who clicks on a second listening, as it did with you? I'll point out that I've not read the Guardian interview you linked to yet but shall do so later on. It may put her in perspective.
Do a post like that again though, C. It's always interesting when you link to music in your posts.
Thanks, John, really appreciate your thoughts here and I will check out the bands/song you mention (both unknown to me). Re. your guy from work, I find other people's recommendations often don't work for me but it's a treat when they do... on the same token I wouldn't be offended if everyone else hated what I like - but again it feels nice when others get it too! Know what you mean about Ms Dynamite and Tricky btw... In spite of the frequent rapping and intensity throughout, the whole album is actually quite a mixture and what I like about it too is that it's not all instant. Don't you find sometimes the songs that are the least instant are the ones that give the longest-lasting satisfaction, it's as if you have to let them work on you slowly and that gives them staying power?!
DeleteThanks so much for the encouragement re. posts... I go through phases... never know quite what'll come next but then that's half the fun, isn't it?