Kelela – Raven

Five years since her fan favourite debut full-length ‘Take Me Apart’ made its mark, Kelela Mizanekristos returns with follow-up ‘Raven’, a sparse, spaced-out devotional to the cathartic power of rave. A simulation that seeks to reclaim the narrative around dance to the hands of black progenitors, Kelela’s version of club music is dense and multidimensional: here she seeks to cultivate a collaborative space, framing her isolation as a communal utopia.

What took Kelela so long? Stemming from a period of internal reckoning, Kelela was prompted to reevaluate her relationship with music and where she would next take her artistry. Searching for newness and a sonically tangible idea that could explicate the deep, palpable work she’s done (and is doing) as a black queer artist, Kelela found freedom in her Berlin sessions working with ambient-techno shamans Yo van Lenz and Florian TM Zeisig, who make up OCA. Kelela’s own exploration of analog minimalism predated this stopover, but these sessions defined a feeling of risk and renewal that permeates across ‘Raven’s’ 15 tracks.

When Kelela released ‘Washed Away’ as a prelude to the album, she channelled her vulnerability into a lamentation of widescreen solitude. That template follows on tracks like ‘Fooley’ and ‘Holier’, where Kelela’s vocals cede to a pared-back hypnotic haze. At times, her vocal appears only half way through, disappearing and re-emerging again – space is made cavernous, as Kelela’s mastery of restraint, reverberant moans and languorous phrasing adds a level prickly intimacy to songs languishing in Dadaistic realms.

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On ‘Raven’, Kelela confronts her demons in cloistered, sweaty rooms, brushing up against desire and danger on dancehall dirges like ‘On The Run’ and the anthemic, anxious jolt of ‘Bruises’. The experience of ‘Raven’ isn’t tethered only to the liberation the dancefloor affords, but what occurs before, after and in between. What goes on the darkest rooms when the come down ensues? Every Kelela project has a sauntering slow-burner and on ‘Raven’ that moment arrives with ‘Sorbet’; the pace slowed down to a hushed, breathy whisper, Kelela in a private room doing private things – this velvety, voyeuristic piece of avant-RnB, a neat call back to tracks like ‘SOS’ and ‘Send Me Out’.

The apotheosis is the title track; ‘Raven’ is active resistance in song form. A disarming Drexciya-esque two-parter that builds to a grimy four-to-the-floor crescendo, Kelela emerges from the ashes in a moment of intense emotional autonomy. Confident in its ability to not pander, much of ‘Raven’ is downbeat, low-res and unvarnished. Don’t listen to ‘Raven’ expecting immediacy. Instead see ‘Raven’ as a point of discovery, fostering dialogue on and beyond the dancefloor; an open expanse of catharsis and a surround experience for the marginalised seeking thrills beyond the white gaze.

8/10

Words: Shahzaib Hussain

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