But there’s still music here that will make your head spin with its exquisite intergenre oddity, like the prog-meets-pop-meets-spoken-word mini opus “The Longing Deep Down” (an “abdominal portal” ode on which she sings, “It’s fucking hard to be longing/And at the same time feel your own belonging”) or “Dancing the Animal,” an ultra-mathy art-funk meditation on the era of the cloud written for the mind/brain.

Her new LP favors a slightly dreamier aesthetic (see the gorgeous, overture-like opener “12 Little Spells,” dedicated to the thoracic spine). 10 for her 2012 album, Radio Music Society. The Grammy-winning bassist/vocalist/composer, a former child prodigy steeped in classical and jazz but bounded by neither, is well over a decade into one of the most fruitful and strikingly original careers in contemporary pop.Įxcellent prior efforts like 2017’s Exposure and 2016’s character-driven Emily’s D+Evolution combined sturdy hooks and bold idiosyncrasy in a way that seemed comparable only to fellow genre-of-one artists like Joni Mitchell, Björk or Spalding’s friend and collaborator Prince. Since 2006 she has released six solo albums securing three No. Portland-born (1984), bassist, vocalist and composer Esperanza Spalding already.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. A guide to Esperanza Spalding: biography, discography, reviews, ratings. Esperanza Spalding’s enthusiasm for bundling her releases with attention-grabbing concepts - like writing and recording an entire album in an uninterrupted 77-hour livestream, or dedicating each song on her new LP, 12 Little Spells , to a different body part - might make it seem like she’s attempting to mask some shortcoming in the actual music.

Esperanza spalding albums