Judith Hill
Letters From a Black Widow
AllMusic 80点相当
過去の Prince とのからみの作品は好きで
そこから以降も、Funkがかった楽曲はそこそこ好きだが、
funk系から外れると、没個性というか
この人じゃなくとも...という感じのところがある。
Fans of Judith Hill will immediately understand the reference in Letters from a Black Widow's title. It's the epithet she was saddled with after the death of mentor and collaborator Prince, after working with and losing Michael Jackson to the same fate. She reclaims the phrase used by an online mob and transforms it into a mantra of power. Hill's newfound use of the electric guitar, an instrument she taught herself to play after Baby, I'm Hollywood, symbolizes that power. She is backed by her parents, Michiko Hill on keyboards, Robert Lee Hill on bass, drummer/percussionist John Staten, Daniel Chae on various stringed instruments, and a host of friends on backing vocals.
Opener "One of the Bad Ones" offers a majestic piano, flute, fingerpicked guitar, and strings. Hill recounts a psychedelic healing experience; the tune elongates, fragments, and splinters into crackling angular funk-rock. Her lyric addresses an unmovable inner mountain of negative emotions: self-doubt, confusion, and pain. Her solution is not to fight, but to accept their presence as threads in her life's fabric, along with joy, pleasure, and love. The bluesy guitar rock in the single "Flame" builds on the lyric resolve of the previous track, as Hill's protagonist not only stands tall but swaggers amid life's chaos as a rumbling B-3 doubles the bassline for momentum.