GutterPutter

Artist, musician, and writer extraordinaire Lonnie Holley has been representing the experimental side of black Americans ever since 1979. He may not have the credentials nor the youth that makes him stand out from other experimental artists, but he’s known to be the kind of person who wears his ancestry up his sleeve. He’s retained a religious/spiritual belief his whole career as a creative as he claimed that divine intervention is what led him to start finding the materials to create his projects. Thus, by the time Oh Me Oh My is released, Holley has built a reputation of being an improvisational sculptor and sound artist whose influences go as far as the oldest traditions within his racial culture.

It’s no doubt, given the rapport he garnered throughout his life, that the album celebrates being black no matter the circumstances as shown in the beginning with ‘Testing’. With the motif of maternal parentage, Holley reminds us of the paths we took to get ourselves to this point, yet we’re reminded from time to time the hardships that the youth will have to jump through. The optimistic, more avant-jazz ‘If We Get Lost They Will Find Us’ bridges self-discovery and native expression thanks to the Mali-born Rokia Koné’s poignant singing in the Bambara language. While Holley’s vocal performance doesn’t go far and beyond in a conventional sense, his passion does stick out a fair bit to help form a bard-like guidance to a new era.

Standing in direct contrast with the two tracks is ‘Future Children’. Picturing a vaguely dystopian picture with a minimalism-inspired composition, the mechanical voice alludes to virtually no hope for the next generation to solve their problems. Whether that is to do with freedom or wealth, there is a foreboding sense that everyone will not be able to enjoy the past privileges. Its experimental, seemingly industrial direction will come off as being pretty off-putting especially given that most of the songs tend to adopt a soulful, even Afrocentric approach to its instrumentation, structure, and theme. 

The title track reminisces the passing of a folk song to mirror the continuation of life within the family and the community. Notably the least eccentric with the overall instrumentation, the song is largely soul-based with a delicate piano playing which will open the gate to nostalgia. ‘I Can’t Hush’ embraces the introspection through the ambient-filled jangle of electronica and jazz as Holley’s stream-of-consciousness lyricism looks at upholding independence. ‘Kindness Will Follow Your Tears’, a more distinctly gospel track with a surprise featured performance from Bon Iver, builds on compassion and empathy as exemplified through the act of crying. These stick out as slight highlights for its successful blend of more modernised sounds to help add texture to the album, making the experience more ethereal.

Otherwise, other tracks like ‘I Am A Part Of The Wonder’ and ‘Better Get That Crop In Soon’ melds both jazz and downtempo electronica with mixed results. While the ambient backing could give off a sense of serenity like in a new-age classical record, there’s a jauntiness in the songs that might either come off as repetitive, Evangelical, or psychedelic to a fault. At its best, you can feel the attraction with the earth and its fundamental meaning to the meaning of life. At its worst, it feels too much like an ‘appeal to nature’ fallacy that’s often tossed around with no substance whatsoever. Case in point, ‘Earth Will Be There’ tries to set up nature as our saviour, but the rhythmic percussion puts you off the feeling that’s cut off with an alien monologue by Moor Mother in the end. It’s interesting in theory, but it falls flat with its messaging in practice.

Lastly, the juxtaposed eccentricity of Oh Me Oh My can be summed up in ‘None Of Us Have But A Little While’ and ‘Mount Meigs’. The former track not only feels redundant in its use of the title as a chorus, but its crescendo can feel overblown as well with how the production amplifies the backing vocals and the wind instruments a bit too much. It can really make the attempt to go inspirational too forced and melodramatic. Not helping much is that for a song that’s on an album that largely looks at the Afrocentric experience, the featured artist is Sharon Van Etten. Such a nitpick on someone who’s ethnically white like Bon Iver would come off as petty or insensitive in any other album, but to have someone of a different race be included without any explicit commentary on racial relations can dampen the message.

By contrast, ‘Mount Meigs’ sees what makes Lonnie Holley such a worthwhile artist come up at its very best. Its synergistic use of historical/autobiographical storytelling in its lyrics with the riveting, even vicious jazz playing paints a dark picture of his childhood growing up in a juvenile corrections facility in the 60s. To hear about living in a segregated environment acting like slaves which should’ve been illegal a century before puts into perspective the importance of black triumph for the whole racial group given their past. It will come as a shock therefore when you hear him utter how much his past has directed him his whole life. “We didn’t get no scholarships / We didn’t get no graduate degrees/ But all of that information is still within me” will not leave you alone for a long time.

Personally, Oh Me Oh My is a difficult album to classify with the closest befitting way to describe it being that it’s an experimentally ambient jazz soul record. Its spiritual convictions may not reach to everyone who listens to it, but it will leave an impact that’s unignorable for those who feel its presence. While the instruments may not have always been executed in a way that helps its tracks or how the production might add too much to each sound, Holley’s latest release does have its own genuine charm. Fans of music that revolve around cathartic feelings such as neoclassical new age alongside those who love African American music in general will find this to be a gem. However, the album’s passion can come off as a double edged sword for its conscious representations of race and generational gap which will split how you feel about it. I find it to have a nice blend of both convincing highs and zealous lows; do feel free to listen to it with discretion.