You won’t see two more contrasting shows this year than Corinne Bailey Rae performing her album Black Rainbows and Brian Eno presenting work with a symphony orchestra. One had music that did everything; one had music that did very little. But both were overwhelming and filled with joy of rather different kinds.
When Bailey Rae last made an album, in 2016, it was gentle, tasteful, soulful R&B, the kind the young professional couple in a prestige Netflix drama listen to before their lives are overturned by a vengeful nanny. Black Rainbows,by contrast, from earlier this year, was an abrupt embrace of everything: from scuzzy garage punk to psychedelic soul to American show tunes, all inspired by the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago and its exhibits on the black experience in America. Black Rainbows was the album the young bohemian couple in a prestige Netflix drama listen to before their lives are overturned by a distracting bartender.
My wife goes on about how cleansing gong baths are, and I imagine this was similar
If that sounds a bit worthy, a bit eat-your-greens, it really wasn’t.
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