Album review: Gil Scott-Heron, 'I'm New Here'
In the ‘70s, Gil Scott-Heron bridged jazz, soul, protest music and poetry into a singular sound, one that anticipated hip-hop and influenced everyone from Chuck D to Michael Franti. But in the last 25 years he has released only one studio album, while battling drug addiction and serving two prison sentences for cocaine possession and violating a plea deal. “I’m New Here” (XL), released 40 years after his debut, finds the 60-year-old artist sounding not just world weary, but exhausted.
In contrast to the politically charged material that defined his finest recordings, the new album is meditative and introspective, laced with reminiscences about his childhood and his personal struggles. Producer Richard Russell frames Scott-Heron’s ravaged voice in a variety of settings, all of them sparse: spoken word over a snippet of Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights,” an electro-thump loop, undulating acoustic folk. This music is all shadows and flickers, distorted voices and static-encrusted vibes, interspersed with spoken-word interludes that sound like decaying voicemail messages. There are interpretations of Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker blues, a Smog cover and a reworking of a Bobby “Blue” Bland ballad.
Indeed, this is a postmodern blues album as conceived sometime between closing time and sunrise, a dark-night-of-the-soul lament in which the artist tosses and turns while mumbling and slurring his words. On originals such as “Where did the Night Go,” “Running” and “New York is Killing Me,” the artist testifies to a life without rest or solace, a kind of eternal sleeplessness where everything is blurred and anxious. After a career steeped in baritone authority, “I’m New Here” is startling for the vulnerability and fragility it reveals. The 28-minute length of this album adds to the impression that this feels more like a demo, a collection of fragments woven by Russell into a cautionary mood piece, rather than a major comeback.
greg@gregkot.com