Though Michael Kiwanuka was chosen as the BBC Sound of 2012, it’s a bit more than apparent that this 25 year old’s first 10 track musical endeavor is a straight ricochet of 70’s jazz and all things retro.
The album opens with the jazz soaked atmospheric ‘Tell Me A Tale’, replete with subtle saxophone cadences and shades and tinges of easy listening lounge. ‘I’m Getting Ready’ is a cry to the Lord, furnished with gentle brushed drums while ‘Rest’ operates on a lilting guitar riff quite reminiscent of Ray LaMontagne’s ‘Let It Be Me’. ‘I’ll Get Along’ is hopeful and trippy with a catchy flute riff.
‘Home Again’, a soothing acoustic take with soft hand claps in the background is accompanied by Kiwanuka’s tone that’s filled with the sort of pessimism that’s on the brink of optimism. Doo-wops weave in and out on ‘Bones’, a feet tapping ditty.
The album’s coda surfaces with the onset of ‘Worry Walks Beside Me’. Orchestral ornamentations are featured heavily on each track.
Essentially, Home Again is a sort of thesaurus of 70’s folk and soul, a ‘Otis-Redding-meets-Amy Winehouse –with Bill Wither-ish- nuances’ Kiwanuka’s voice has a certain aged and weighty quality that works well as he sings about pain, loss and so on. You can say that each song is a variation of the previous yet there’s nothing particularly wrong about that. If anything, the album contains genuinely good music, the kind that creates a warm hearted, cozy ambience at a small get together or that can be played in the car during a long drive.
There’s nothing spectacularly life changing about the songs yet they’re a breath of fresh air as compared to the overproduced, meticulously packaged stuff that’s been circulating the airwaves lately.
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