Bulk Order Ware, Jessie Devotion Island vinyl record

Soul Funk & R& B11 Tracks – Devotion — an album of uncommon depth, a sophisticated but stimulating hybrid of pop, soul, and adult contemporary.
Ware works extensively with Dave Okumu, Julio Bashmore, and Kid Harpoon, but it’s Okumu — a member of the Invisible, as well as an affiliate of Bugz in the Attic and Matthew Herbert — who is most responsible for helping Ware prance across the tightrope that comes with making subtle, sophisticated music. Ware’s voice is an instant draw. Her whispers are as powerful as her wails. Whenever the lyrics read like they’re aiming for the profound but appear hollow, she rescues them with elegance and power impressive enough to astound any of the elders to whom she has been compared — Alison Moyet, Annie Lennox, Sade Adu, and Lisa Stansfield included. Take the weakest link, “No to Love”; the repeated exasperation “Who says no to love?” seems utterly ridiculous, but the delivery fits into the all-consuming heartache that is alternately concealed and exposed throughout the set’s duration. If this isn’t the album of the year, it’s at least the art-pop album of the year, or the neo-sophisti-pop album of the year, or — beside Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange — the alternative R&B album of the year. As far as “proper music” from the U.K. is considered, it belongs in a class with Roxy Music’s Avalon, Sade’s Diamond Life, the Blue Nile’s Hats, and Caron Wheeler’s UK Blak.