“Undercover lover, cool me down,” has the sort of mystery Tay has perfected throughout his career. No pauses, rewinds, fast-forwards or skips. In usual 1-listen review fashion, all reactions are in real time while the music plays. With his new project ‘Summer Breeze’ released today, here’s a 1-listen review of the soul savant’s newest body of work. His recent singles “Healing” and “Undercover Lover” have returned him to his pristine elements, relaying that old sensitive soul he’s known for. Tay’s vision often comes across as crystal clear. Following up from ‘GOLD’ and his globe-trotting debut album ‘GEMINI’, it represented an essential weaning of some pop sensibilities he’d picked up in recent years. His last showing came on ‘Love & Isolation’, a delicate collection whose records had soothing clarity. Ever since Tay has immersed his projects in transcendental sounds and themes. This avant-garde approach was audible even while he was a teenager, releasing the ‘Passport’ and ‘Renascentia’ tapes to critical acclaim. A majority of Tay’s new audiences would know him for contributions alongside the likes of Wizkid, IDK and Tiwa Savage, but Tay Iwar’s artistic vision of probing the human condition in majestic sonics has been his unique pull, beyond the glitz of pop music.Įmerging from the Abuja scene, he’s carried this responsibility through the sensitive traditions within R&B, a sound that is pushed to its furthest possibilities by Tay. In the past decade, he has gone from underground darling to working with the prominent names across pop music, lending his trademark sensitivity to their records, whether as a producer, featured guest, or songwriter. "Advance Guards" has that same sense of wonder, conveying it in a slower, more luxuriant setting, and the record ends on a rougher-hewn note with the more beat-driven, electric guitar-heavy "Yellow Dirt." Summer Breeze was the most highly regarded of all of Seals & Crofts' albums, a fact reflected by its reissue as part of the all too short-lived Warner Archives series in 1995, which also accounts for its far better than average sound.Tay Iwar is the quintessential soul musician. "The Euphrates" picks up the tempo, providing an upbeat take on the meaning of life that loses none of its inherent sense of wonder. "Fiddle in the Sky" shifts the album into purer country territory, while "The Boy Down the Road" moves listeners into a country-folk vein with a spookily melodramatic tale. "East of Ginger Trees" is a hauntingly beautiful excursion into more Baha'i scripture, with delectable harmonies, a gorgeous mandolin part, and one of the most exquisitely restrained uses of orchestra of its era. "Say" asks a lot of serious philosophical questions amid its rapid beat and playful tone. "Funny Little Man" mixes understated harmonies and acoustic instruments into an extended break that could almost pass for a classical piece. "Hummingbird" quotes from the Baha'i scriptures and has a segmented structure with a chantlike opening and a sharp change in tempo, which didn't stop it from becoming a hit, and for all of its beauty, the soaring Marty Paich-arranged orchestral accompaniment, highlighted by lofty strings and a gorgeous horn part, never eclipses the core sound of the duo's singing and their acoustic guitar/mandolin combination. The title track is one of those relentlessly appealing 1970s harmony-rock anthems, in the same mode as the Doobie Brothers' "Listen to the Music" and appropriately ubiquitous on the radio and in the memory the guitar (electric and acoustic) and vocal hooks are all well-nigh irresistible. Summer Breeze offered an unusually ambitious array of music within a soft rock context - most artists tried to avoid weighty subjects in such surroundings (except, of course, CSN or Simon & Garfunkel, who could pretty much get away with anything).
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