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Los Angeles-based singer Dijon Duenas, raised in Maryland, started out in the neo-soul duo Abhi//Dijon before going solo as Dijon. At best, the 31-minute Absolutely (2021) projects the vision of a song format at the intersection of bedroom-pop and neo-soul.
Most songs are just miniatures, abstract sketches, of songs.
His brand of neosoul works best in the
slow slow slow gospel-ish Noah's Highlight Reel and in the
whispered singalong God In Wilson, with an acid guitar that pops up in the second half.
The tear-jerker Rodeo Clown and the
sentimental 1980s ballad The Dress
cater to the fans of classicist neosoul.
The drunk, loose and disjointed End Of Record veers off course.
On the other hand, Many Times is just conventional party music.
Duenas plays bass, clarinet, drums, guitar, organ and synthesizer.
Michael "Mk.gee" Gordon, the main co-producer, plays bass, drums, guitar, piano and synth.
Baby (2025), mostly produced by Andrew Sarlom=,
attempts a more intellectual deconstruction of neo-soul.
The glitchy,
hazy, disjointed, muffled and even hallucinatory
production, frequently drenched in
heavy reverb, somehow elicits a profoundly intimate atmosphere.
It is an exaggeration of the production style of
Justin Vernon (Bon Iver).
The lyrics are rather mundane but the human voice
(and vocal effects in general)
is mostly used as an instrument.
At the same time, the lo-fi synthesizers and the distorted guitars become alternative and complementary voices, a veritable choir.
Dijon practices the neosoul equivalent of freak-folk: freak-soul.
This is particularly visible in the most "left field" songs:
the strident cubistic Fire, the
shouted distorted blues Rewind,
the restless power-ballad
Automatic (with its unstable schizophrenic hard-hitting beat that collides with classic rap samples).
The agonizing Higher, a collaboration with Justin Vernon, James "Jim-E Stack" Stack, Jennifer Wasner (of Wye Oak), and Michael "Mk.gee" Gordon, sits on off-kilter rhythm and vocal chaos bordering on sound collage.
Even the more regular (moronic) pop ballads get transformed: see the dense ebullient underbelly of Yamaha, produced by Brandon Burton, and the laid-back Eastern-tinged Kindalove, another Mk.gee collaboration, with a spectral ending.
The languid, "stoned" Baby, crafted by Frank Ocean's producer Josiah "Buddy Ross" Sherman, Henry Kwapis and Canadian songwriter Tobias Jesso, is delivered like a choral plantation song over a bluesy guitar riff.
Throughtout the album there are traces of retro 1980s revival, notably in the
funky Another Baby,
co-produced with Mk.gee, that emits echoes of
Michael Jackson and
Prince.
(Copyright © 2024 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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