Dance Of The Infidels

Anyone who's has to listen to me Bore For England on the subject of music will know that I am a huge fan of Meshell Ndegeocello - probably my single favorite musician of the last decade or so and mentioned no fewer than 8 times previously on this blog. So maybe it's not that much of a surprise that I am seriously feeling her "Dance Of The Infidels" album. This is the jazz project that Verve canned, but it has gotten a French release.

I only found out about this finally coming out because someone posted the whole thing on Usenet. Of course I downloaded it, which is how I am listening to it now*. It is - with the exception of perhaps one track** - very much a real jazz album, not fusion or jazz funk, but does sound very distinctively Meshell. As such, it doesn't quite have the "holy crap, that is the funkiest thing I ever heard" initial impact that her stuff often does, but in common with her previous work it has a lot of subtlety that bears repeated listening, and I am liking this one more and more with each pass.

(* but, it turns out, you need to know very little French to use Amazon's One-Click, so a copy is on its way.)
(** "Aquarium", which would not sound out of place on A Guy Called Gerald album.)

Now, if we can just get her to bring Spirit Music Jamia to Vancouver instead of Montreal this year...