FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Laura Mvula – The Dreaming Room
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I have included some fairly recent albums…
in my Vinyl Corner feature, as there are these recordings that sort of got some attention when they were released but they do not get talked about too much today. I have always loved the work of Laura Mvula and her debut album, Sing to the Moon, of 2013 contained the phenomenal track, Green Garden. With a stunningly powerful voice and a blend of R&B and Neo-Soul, there is a dreaminess and potency that makes her music so long-lasting and interesting. The Dreaming Room is Mvula’s second album, and it was released on 17th June, 2016. There was a positive critical response to Sing to the Moon, and it got inside the top-three in the U.K. album charts. Following that debut release, Mvula worked on various projects; she recorded Little Girl Blue, which was included on the soundtrack for the 2013 film, 12 Years a Slave. At this venture, Mvula began working on her second album. It wasn’t until January 2016 when her first single in three years arrived in the form of Overcome. The song features Nile Rodgers, and it was one of Mvula’s strongest releases. I really love Sing to the Moon, but there was some extra on The Dreaming Room; her sound and confidence was at a new peak and her songwriting finer. I would urge people to buy The Dreaming Room on vinyl, as it is such a deep and stunning album.
Although she wrote songs with others – producer Troy Miller co-writes a few tracks, whilst Steve Brown takes a couple -, it is Mvula’s voice and direction that defines the album. She has a writing credit for every song, and I think she puts her everything into each track! The Dreaming Room is a stunning album that boasts so many standouts. I really love the singles, Phenomenal Woman, and Show Me Love, but non-singles such as Who Am I, and Let Me Fall are sensational. There are, in my opinion, no weak moments, and one can easily listen through The Dreaming Room time and time again, as you’ll pick up new shades and layers that you might not have encountered the first time around! It has been four years since that album, and I wonder whether we might get a new album from Laura Mvula next year, perhaps? It would be fantastic, as the Birmingham-born artist is one of the U.K.’s best singer-songwriters, and her albums are always stuffed with life, meaning and passion. There was a really positive reaction to The Dreaming Room. This is what AllMusic wrote when they reviewed the album:
“The Dreaming Room is somehow more sumptuous and emotive than Sing to the Moon, Laura Mvula's impressive 2013 debut. Written and produced primarily with Troy Miller, who she met while working on the soundtrack for 12 Years a Slave, it's another categorically evasive set that updates and amalgamates traditional forms of blues, jazz, R&B, and orchestral pop. For all its unearthly charm, it nurtures the soul. Mvula's rich voice prances across songs of perseverance, salvation, survival, hope, and pride.
Everything is transmitted with a contagious form of optimism, even in darker moments like "People," where Mvula mourns "They strip us down and rape our minds, our skin was a terrible thing to live in," then marvels "How glorious, this light in us," her words accentuated with a congruent verse from Wretch 32. The only other guest appearance comes from Nile Rodgers, whose golden and unmistakable rhythm guitar is threaded throughout "Overcome," one of the many highlights of this powerful album”.
Although The Dreaming Room charted lower in the U.K. compared with Sing to the Moon, I think it is a better album, and it deserved more acclaim and sales. Looking back, I think the album is one of the best of 2016. It was a very strong year for music and, if released now, I think the album would go into the top-ten in the U.K. and U.S. There was a lot of love for the album. When they tackled the album, The Guardian offered the following:
“The Dreaming Room is a rich stew. It’s vivid, cramming a lot of information into barely half an hour of music. Even the most commercial tracks are pretty odd – as evidenced by the off-kilter funk and yelped, incomprehensible chorus of the single Phenomenal Woman, Mvula’s interpretation of her grandma’s instruction to “write a song I can lift me spirits, write a song I can jig me foot” – and even the quiet moments prickle with intensity: the ostensibly straightforward piano-and-vocal section in Show Me, recorded in such a way that Mvula appears to be singing directly into your ear, the tranquil piano chords disrupted by the noise of her feet on the pedals. Lyrically, it’s preoccupied with relationship woe and black empowerment.
The artist who declined to attend the Brits in protest at its woeful lack of black nominees is present on People – “our skin was a terrible thing to live in” – while there’s also a lot of raw, often harrowing stuff about Mvula’s divorce, the tracks on which she appears to come to terms with the collapse of her marriage outnumbered by those where she seems inconsolable: “I miss the wonder of a future with somebody,” she sings on Show Me’s hymn-like opening, “Oh God, where are you?”
It should be much harder work than it is. But like Joanna Newsom, Mvula pulls the listener along with her through the most serpentine songs: however winding their routes, the melodies are almost always beautiful; however much the musical scenery shifts, it is always striking. You do wonder what its commercial fate will be. Despite the discrepancy between its advance publicity and its contents, Sing to the Moon went gold, but there are moments here strange enough to make Sing to the Moon sound like the work of the new Adele by comparison. Or perhaps audiences will be seduced by The Dreaming Room’s invention and originality, which would be entirely fitting”.
If you have not played or owned The Dreaming Room, I think it is a good time to discover a real treat. Mvula’s voice is like no other, and her second studio albums offers so much to the listener. It is a wonderful release, and one that I have been revisiting a lot over the past few weeks. Go and get a wonderful album from such…
A huge talent.