Solange Returns to Her Roots in 'When I Get Home'
Reconstruction and remembrance in 'When I Get Home' five years later.
During an interview with The New York Times Style Magazine, author Ayana Mathis suggested that Solange's most recent album represents a metaphysical journey back to Houston. This location holds deep resonance within the Knowles family legacy. During the interview, this symbolic return was not yet attached to the album title, When I Get Home. This album, accompanied by a complementary short film, effectively reimagines and reshapes Houston as it exists within the depths of Solange's psyche.
Rather than encapsulating the past, the album offers a prospective recollection of Houston, evoking a transient cognitive construct. Resonant bass notes seemingly emerge from unseen spaces, adhering to local customs. The vibrations of synthesizers and samples reverberate off the city's towering office buildings, their echoes reaching the heavens.
As Black cowboys ride through the twilight, their horses' hoof beats serve as a percussive soundtrack. Items discarded from space take on a special status, while snippets of vocals from local rappers Devin the Dude and Scarface flutter by like hushed conversations from passing vehicles.
A span of three years, the unveiling of her heartfelt album, A Seat at the Table, witnesses Solange deviating from traditional song structures and world-conscious lyrics, presenting a record shrouded in sonic and thematic ambiguity. This newfound direction exudes a sense of liberation and a diminished preoccupation with external viewpoints. Even with Houston as a vital backdrop, akin to the role of New Orleans in A Seat, the ethereal and free-associative nature of the music indicates a more fluid notion of "home."
Solange shares a pearl of essential wisdom: Home cannot be owned; it persists in your absence. Acknowledging the fallibility of memory, she infuses movement into her music. This abstract Houston is accessed via a recurring refrain emphasizing the transitory nature of recollection.
The album's music, in its constant flux, eludes concrete categorization. Its ambiguous nature doesn't directly confer significance; much like in jazz or drone genres, the listener's active engagement kindles emotional response. Contrary to her former album, Solange does not lay out a clear thesis, thereby shifting the onus of interpretation onto the listener.
This can serve as a freeing creative catalyst, especially for an artist recognized for her auteurism. Solange and her musical collaborators - predominantly male except for Abra and Cassie - traverse various rhythmic patterns, concealing musical treasures beneath prominent keys, the allure of the Moog, and intricate drum patterns that amplify the omnipresent bass notes.
The album incorporates samples, background vocals, and additional credits to individuals who embody Houston's historical and contemporary significance, including Phylicia Rashad, poet Pat Parker, and Solange's young son, Julez Smith II, who is credited for the production of the interlude "Nothing Without Intention."
When I Get Home represents a journey into the unknown while retaining a level of sophistication. The melodies featured in "Down With the Clique" and "Way to the Show" could potentially be reinterpreted as fragments from her debut album, Solo Star, released during her nascent pop career. Pharrell, renowned for his refined aesthetics, graces "Sound of Rain" with his signature four-count introduction, capturing the sunny, pixelated optimism emblematic of late '90s/early 2000s futurism.
He also introduces his iconic tight drums and rhythmically offset piano to "Almeda," a track that's captured the affection of fans due to an unexpected feature by Playboi Carti, whose lyrics about diamonds illuminating the dark resonate on a path where Solange extols black ownership. Despite the album's Houston-centric narrative, "Binz" is the sole track alluding to Solange's sojourn in Jamaica. It's a track that invites kinetic engagement, from slapping walls to winding waists to popping booties. Her distinct three-part harmonies, a stylistic hallmark since her rendition of the Dirty Projectors' "Stillness Is the Move," rise over a dense arpeggiated bassline, giving way to an animated exchange between Solange and The-Dream that mirrors the chants of Sister Nancy.
Solange indulges in playful experimentation, striving for a musical template that echoes the boundless positivity of Stevie Wonder, the hallucinatory charm of chopped and screwed music, or the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and the Arkestra of Sun Ra. One of her key collaborators, John Carroll Kirby, creates solo work that leans towards the New Age genre. Standing on the Corner, an emergent jazz ensemble from New York City, lends moments of exquisite drama and tension – an apt framework for the gestural, postmodern choreography that Solange embraces.
Five years later, When I Get Home is an ambient masterpiece, unburdened by the emotional catharsis in A Seat at the Table, though it is bereft of a clear guiding statement. With fourteen of the nineteen tracks clocking in at under three minutes, the album hints at a more stream-of-consciousness mosaic than the focused brevity found in Tierra Whack's Whack's World. Despite a plethora of ideas introduced by Solange, the album leaves the listener pondering its implications for her aesthetic method. This longing for a clear directive arises due to the urgent nature of A Seat at the Table.