Rating: 3 stars (out of 4)“Out My Mind, Just in Time,” the 10-minute closing track of Erykah Badu’s fifth studio album,
“New AmErykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh” (Motown), starts out slow, pensive and needy, and gradually unravels into the spaced-out hallucinations that made her previous album such a trip. At one point, the song slows down as if it were a vinyl record shuddering to a halt after the turntable plug was pulled in the middle of track.
That sort of sonic adventurousness (or weirdness, take your pick) defined Badu’s 2008 release,
“New AmErykah, Part One: 4th World War.” A brilliant, angry, questioning album, it nailed American society’s anxiety as it redefined Badu’s music. It also likely made her record company overseers wonder whatever happened to the bohemian neo-soul princess they thought they signed in the ‘90s.
That singer can still purr, and hints of the languorous intimacy of her earliest music surface on “Return of the Ankh,” with its more inward-looking songs. If the previous album was social, political and analytical in scope, “Return of the Ankh” is all about intimacy, desire, heartsickness. Whereas “4th World War” was largely created on a laptop, “Return of the Ankh” has a live-in-the-studio feel, a subdued jam session. Badu coproduces, a mistress of vibe and feel rather than strictly formatted songcraft.
It opens with a question: “My love, what did I do to make you fall so far from me?” And it closes with an addict’s admission: “Recovering from a love I can’t get over.” The neediness is balanced by songs that suggest a more playful, mischievous, even devious perspective. “You better get away from here,” she warns a suitor in “Fall in Love (Your Funeral).” Turns out the contours of Badu’s heart are as wide, deep and shadowy as her ruminations on the state of the American consciousness. But the music is breezier, more relaxed, even as it wiggles beyond the contours of traditional pop. It’s the aural equivalent of a sun-kissed afternoon swaying in a hammock, the mind and the songs drifting away on their own quirky paths.
greg@gregkot.com
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