Me’Shell Ndegeocello

Comfort Woman

(Maverick)

Me’Shell Ndegeocello’s deep voice excites and entices on her latest album Comfort Woman. With her fifth project, she continues to please with her unique style and sultry baritone voice. The new album marks a dramatic reversion to the style that established her esteemed position in alternative R&B.

Whereas Ndegeocello’s third release Bitter relied on organic instruments, Comfort utilizes electronic instruments, giving a futuristic sound to match the colorful and galactic feeling of its album cover. “Love Song #1,” in which she declares “This is love / this is how I love you,” fuses a saturated bass line with elements of reggae and Caribbean music.

As a multifaceted artist, Ndegeocello’s style has been difficult to essentialize. While it has familiar elements from previous albums, Comfort lacks the dynamism and shock value of her debut Plantation Lullabies and the chilling introspection of Bitter. The various love songs, which do depart most of today’s popular music, still fall flat in light of her past work. Comfort Woman is a fitting name—Ndegeocello refrains from taking any risks, staying firmly in her comfort zone.

Though the album only grazes the surface of her musical persona, Ndegeocello fans will value its attempts to offer various audio snapshots of Me’Shell in different poses. Comfort shows little sign of artistic development and will not win Ndegeocello any new fans. However, it does remind existing fans of the various reasons they loved her in the first place.

—Cassandra Cummings

Kid Koala

Some of My Best Friends Are DJs

(Ninja Tune)

The long-awaited follow-up to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which brought Canadian turntablist Kid Koala out of relative obscurity, Some of My Best Friends Are DJs will please fans old and new with its intelligent and humorous turntable mastery.

The drunken, lazy scratching and melted jazz residue of “Basin Street Blues” (a surprisingly well-done cover of Spencer Williams’ 1928 standard) makes for a solid, foundational opener. Meanwhile, “Skanky Panky” wins us over with its oompa-loompa beats, droning trumpet sampling and all-around technical genius. Few others could make the complex endeavor of sampling from completely different musical worlds sound so very simple.

Kid Koala lays random and weird vocal samples over his instrumental samples in such a witty way that hearing about the territorialism of the koala and “the French-Canadian province, Quebec” is probably more entertaining than anything Quebec itself has to offer. Similarly, “Robochacha” opens with—ostensibly—a high school cheerleader from the 1950s trying to get a robot to show her what he’s working with on the dance floor.

One of the album’s few weak points is the foundational beats of “Annie’s Parlor,” which sound like what used to happen when you played your Nintendo for too long and the screen started to jerk all over itself. With the album running just over half an hour, the song’s lack of compelling elements is somewhat of a problem. Nonetheless, Kid Koala’s talent is undeniable, and the free cardboard chess set and comic book that come with the album are only icing on the cake. —Marissa R. Robillard