Is anyone else tiring of the ice bucket challenge? I am all for raising much needed money for important causes, but sometimes enough is enough. Why aren’t we also dumping ice water for poverty, illiteracy, and hatred? When I look away from these silly videos, my other feed is on the tragic events of Ferguson, the loss of Robin Williams, and depression. With all of this, sometimes you just want to escape. Escape is necessary. Turning off your feed and rebooting your life.
When I think about these questions, and need to escape, I listen to music. It soothes me and I find that I learn so much when I slip away into a beat and focus on the sound and the lyrics. I love learning about artists that I have never heard before. I love hearing new sounds that are innovative and interesting.
This, in a weird way, helps me to realize, creativity and invention are our only solutions to any crisis. We just can’t rely on the same old patterns and methods. I approach difficult subjects the same way. I don’t rely on any one source to retrieve my information. I believe that it is imperative to read and seek out multiple opinions, like I listen to multiple musical genres. I love my dear friends who think like I do, but I actively seek out others who think differently from me too (as infuriating as it can be on occasion). Forward thinking people intrigue me, not those stuck in the past, always looking back.
Here’s is where this lovely song comes in. Kindness is a solo project of Adam Bainbridge. He has a new album releasing this October and we have been given a new single to salivate over. It is a doozy and beautifully connects with my need to think through all of the tragedy that seems to saturate the news. The song “World Restart feat. Kelela & Ade” is a wall of pleasing sounds. Horn heavy, thumping bass, and wildly uplifting…. it is a downright dynamic track that infuses a little soul, funk, R&B and jazz.
The album Otherness is full of musical collaborations and features many guests like Robyn and Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes. It is a follow up to the successful first album, World, You Need A Change Of Mind. From this fall’s cover story in Fader magazine, Lisa Blanning writes,
“Kindness is a project borne from the musical generosity of others, and in enlisting some of his favorite living musicians to play, he’s creating his own, new community.”
Collaboration, sharing, and the giving of your gifts freely…..Maybe this song and this artist provide a simple musical step, a step in the right direction, to try and restart the world. Keep an open mind and judge for yourself.
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