Kali Uchis delivers a love-pilled third album, PÖ shares a fierce debut, and slowthai returns with a deeply personal record
Kali Uchis opens her third album, Red Moon in Venus, with the words “I love you”. It’s with this sentiment that the Colombian-American artist invites us into her conceptual world, a rose-tinted soundscape filled to the brim with roses and lovestruck choruses. The album name is a reference to the blood moon, a rare alignment that is believed by astrologers to send your emotions into a tailspin. A sonic representation of the tumultuous ride that is falling in love, Red Moon in Venus pulses with pillowy R&B melodies that leave you swooning at every breath. Over 15 tracks, Uchis taps into her inner goddess, singing soulfully in mostly English as she floats between soul, pop, música urbana and more experimental textures. As she said in an accompanying statement: “Red Moon In Venus is a timeless, burning expression of desire, heartbreak, faith, and honesty, reflecting the divine femininity of the moon and Venus.”
Exploring love in all its different phases, the album suitably starts googly-eyed, with the elegant single “I Wish You Roses” promises a love passionate enough to last forever (but, “with pretty flowers can come the bee sting,” she warns), while “Fantasy”, an Afropop track with Uchis’ actual romantic partner Don Toliver, is sexy and celebratory: “Babe, if you don’t worship me, it just don’t work for me,” purrs Uchis. But then she abruptly interrupts: “That’s it, that’s the end of the song – come on baby, let’s go home,” subsequently calling off any honeymoon phase that came before it. Elsewhere, “Blue” sees the singer get contemplative, riding through the heartache to ask herself: “What’s the point of all the pretty things in the world, if I don’t have you?” For Uchis, love is the message, love conquers all.
Elsewhere, Kate NV releases a playful new album, PÖ shares a fierce debut, and slowthai returns with UGLY.