Wednesday, February 21st, 2018

Daniel Caesar ft. Kali Uchis – Get You

Freudian [6]…


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John Seroff: In a year with a lot of competition (Syd, SZA, Dawn, Gabriel Garzón-Montano,Stokely, Sevyn, et. al.) Freudian was maybe my favorite R&B album of last year. Even so, I’ll cop to “Get You” being a strange choice for a single. It has none of the lush Stevie-ness of “Loose,”, the floaty remember-when-Frank-Ocean-was-good vibes of “Take Me Away,” the naked D’Angelo-style funk of “Neu Roses.” What it does have is a falsetto keen of painful satisfaction and a tantalizingly slow tempo that’s sure to prove an acoustic favorite for the sensitive guys fooling around on the quad.
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Alfred Soto: Boasting the quiet, casual intimacy of Tricky and Martina’s mid nineties duets, “Get You” expands its concentric rings of feeling one harmony at a time. Whew — reputable British R&B.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: I’ve been waiting for Daniel Caesar to sell me on his talents to the level of his passionate fans, but “Get You” isn’t quite the kind of downtempo neo-soul that could do it; he sounds like a less perpetually sharp but equally less lyrically minded John Legend. However, I’d also like a chance to be convinced where he doesn’t come along assisted by as soulless a band of culture vultures as Badbadnotgood and perpetually mediocre a vocalist as Kali Uchis. Maybe in the future.
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Leah Isobel: The album version of “Get You” contains a lush, hushed reverence, making the chorus a sigh of disbelief and pleasure. The single version’s fuller production makes it feel more like a cry of victory, and of possession. It retains some of the original’s sunshine charm, but in these new surroundings, a line like “when we’re making love / your cries, they can be heard from far and wide” is faintly embarrassing. It’s the difference between whispering something secret and saying it a little too loudly in a public place.
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William John: If I could lodge any objection with Daniel Caesar’s debut album Freudian, it would be its lyrics. He’s fond of ungainly rhyming couplets and not shy about the saccharine or histrionic. The arrangements help, but it takes a special voice to transform crude poetry about thighs and noises made during sex into something to be played at the first dance of a wedding. Fortunately, Caesar is possessed of such a voice and knows it, letting his coos float in luxuriant stillness when the chorus hits, and layering his lower and middle registers over each other in a bridge designed to provoke reverie. It’s sugary, but when done right, caramel can be just marvellous.
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Julian Axelrod: A ballad that never breaks eye contact, a tender kiss that leaves marks, four minutes that last an eternity: There’s a physicality to this that most modern R&B lacks. The lyrics aren’t particularly explicit, but they suggest an intimacy only achieved when two bodies occupy the same space. It drips with aching and longing; even the bass and drums feel like two lovers in orbit, drifting just beyond each other’s reach. Most arresting is Caesar’s vulnerability; he sounds like he still can’t quite believe he’s with this incredible woman. He understands how the best romance feels like a dream that could end any second, which makes it all the more rewarding to wake up next to someone you love.
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Ryo Miyauchi: “Get You” has the making of a good soul song: the biblical imagery cut with straight-to-the-point sex talk; a sweet epiphany as a chorus. But none of it hits its stride. Daniel Caesar’s storm-like love doesn’t sound titanic as the images he chooses. If he’s feeling a little freaky, he should just go for it. And charming as it is, I wish I sensed more of a surprise in the line, “who would’ve thought I’d get you.”
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Will Adams: My enjoyment of this mostly comes down to whether I interpret the title as “understand you” or “obtain you”; one’s sweet, the other not so much. Apart from that, it’s got the pleasant languor of a Miguel slow jam, but realizing this means you also realize that his own collab with Kali Uchis has a lot more life to it.
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Thomas Inskeep: Woozy late-’90s-callback neo-soul that hits all the right notes on a spacious track with crisp snare hits. Caesar’s a fine singer, nicely emotive with a lovely falsetto which he deploys at just the right times. Uchis drops in at the end to sing just two lines; would’ve liked to hear this as a duet. But the sum of these parts is still solid.
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