Solange Album "When I Get Home"

Solange's latest album, "When I Get Home", released last Friday, is the kind of album an artist makes when they don't have to worry about money.  When they don't have to worry about studio rental, roof rental, grocery money, car fare, air fare, or any other pecuniary concern whatsoever for the next 5 generations or more.  It's the album an artist can make when all of the lower layers of the Maslowian pyramid have long since been secured.  It's the album you make when critics, record companies, friends, foes, business managers, and radio programmers can all take a hike if they're not feeling your vibe.  With Solange Knowles' album it's either her way or the highway.  She won't lose any sleep or miss any meals if you're not on board with her program.  Haters, kick rocks.

The album is at once childlike and mature; simple and unfathomable; trite and profound.  It's the soundtrack for uncompromising nonconformity.  Whereas nonconformists are usually rewarded with unpleasant consequences and often crippling poverty, Solange has no such preoccupations.  For an artist this is what freedom looks like.  We all have tasted it but then the alarm clock rings to remind us where we really stand; a galaxy away from Solange's reality.  Maybe she's showing us what's possible for the species, or maybe showing us what's impossible, perhaps improbable, impractical to be sure.

One thing is for certain Solange's album is not boring.  From beginning to end you are under arrest, under a spell and overtaken.  The music is unquestionably minimalist yet chock full of things to immerse in and ponder.  It's a headphone treasure hunt.  "What did she say?"  "What was that sound?"  "What's the time signature?" "What the F#@k!"  It'll have you mumbling, shaking your head and rethinking your understanding of music, reaching for that drink, or lighting up that spliff.

If you're dumbfounded or confounded by this joint, then Solange has done her job.  This album requires active listening, and attention paying. If you're looking for the beat, sometimes you won't even find it on some of these tunes.  Keep your eye on the north star so you can find your way home after this lady spins you around for 39 minutes.  Your equilibrium will be shot, mind will be blown, paradigms challenged.  You're going to have to trust the GPS in your cellphone for a while, because your semicircular canals and your natural, mammalian homing mechanism will be temporarily on the fritz after this ride.

You gotta love Solange.  She ain't tryin' to be The Bee, nor even buzz her way into the Hive.  She is a singular character living autonomously in a weightlessness unfettered by adoration or criticism.  She is in the space every true artist would love to inhabit.  The creative zone where side eyes, evil eyes or goo-goo eyes are equally meaningless.  In this zone you can make the album of an artist for whom money is truly no object.  

                 - Theo The Thinker -