Ifi Ude – Fala
Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a Polish-Nigerian singer-songwriter spot in Eurovision…
[Video][Website]
[6.67]
Katherine St Asaph: Ude slinks through spoken-word Bat-for-Lashes-like grottos, then reveals what’s at the other end of the cave: high background vox circling a huge strobing-synth chorus.
[8]
Megan Harrington: When I first read about Kepler-186f, I felt sick to my stomach. In that immediate moment it felt terrifying and repulsive to consider the existence of both Earth and something Earth-like. Now that it’s lived in my brain through dozens of trips between work and home, hours spent fiddling with my phone, and at least a couple shades of nail polish, I wonder if Kepler-186f could host Ifi Ude. Sure, she’s Earth grown, but “Fala” is at once celestial and coastal; it grooves like the sand after high tide and glows with the light of a star still lit.
[8]
Alfred Soto: What a fabulous intro: the synth whoop announcing Ude’s grand entrance. Then an Adrian Belew-indebted guitar figure moos behind her. The middle plods. The outro, in which discrete vocalists whoop and do scales, is batshit-awesome.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: Though Google Translate makes this sound like a love song framed as world-making myth, the meaning just doesn’t matter that much –the way the music scurries all over is captivating in any tongue.Voices and chimes and weird electronic squiggles pop up deeper in the track, while a beat ushers Ude’s voice forward to a nice middle,which features a one-person chorus rising up as sorta-uncomfortable backing sounds. A lovely, off-kilter listen.
[7]
Crystal Leww: A rising trend in pop music is cutting-and-pasting different parts of what could be different songs into one, but Ifi Ude has created something cohesive. This lets itself sit in the build-up no longer and no shorter than most EDM tracks with a drop, but it feels like an appropriate eternity, going from a determined whisper to singing to a full on shout seamlessly before returning back into a whisper. It’s hooky without being all-hooky, so “Fala” simultaneously sounds like a song for dancefloors and bedrooms and art galleries and coffee shops and Urban Outfitters and relaxing on that patch of grass by your apartment.
[7]
Brad Shoup: There’s a ton of clutter here, beds and hooks for four other songs at least. And that’s not counting the sultry/punk split going on with the verses and chorus. I’m cowed, but still not feeling like there’s an electropop slayer I’m missing.
[5]
Anthony Easton: All of this atmosphere, slightly harmonic, reminds me of Henri Rousseau, the nice man who painted nice jungle cats in nice orderly rows.
[3]
Will Adams: Takes two verses to get going, but “Fala” soon finds its footing as a sleek yet robust electropop song. The longer it goes, the better it gets, finally plateauing in an instrumental outro that basks in its sun-flared guitar and otherworldly synth whoops.
[7]
Zach Lyon: The First Two Minutes Were Interesting. What Happened After That Blew My Mind And Made Me A Little Sick…
[9]
I can’t think of a better place to put this: you know that widely touted stat that 20% of Spotify’s catalogue has zero plays? Is there any way to find those zero play songs?
Yes! Kind of. Forgotify is a thing someone made that shuffles through all unplayed tracks one by one. Not the same as looking through them yourself, but it’s something.
Ah thank you!!