#dans ce

dans ce - wife

What is R&B these days? In 2011 and 2012, the genre was still readily identifiable as artists like Frank Ocean, Miguel, The Weeknd, and How to Dress Well were tagged as "PBR&B" - or R&B primarily appealing to silly hipsters. Well now in 2014, R&B as a genre has more or less dissolved: it isn't as "urban" as it was ten years or even five years ago; it isn't dominated by impressive vocal chops; it isn't as confessional or soulful as it was during the heyday of Usher and Mariah - or even stretching back to the R&B kings of MJ and D'Angelo. Maybe the only consistent thing from then 'til now has been the theme of love and its unrequited nature, but even that's blurry. Take aforementioned artist How to Dress Well and his new album "Where Is This Heart?" for example. In a recent interview with SPIN, Tom Krell (How to Dress Well) rejects the notion that he's an a R&B artist - and indeed, his new album reflects that, incorporating elements of indie pop, folk, ambient, and emo to create something that is firmly post-R&B. WIFE, the R&B bedroom project of James Kelly - former frontman of black metal band Altar of Plagues - is also something of a post-R&B act in regards to the influences present in the music. In "Dans Ce," a slow-building highlight from WIFE's great album What's Between, fine attention is placed on the song's pace and climax, no doubt influenced by some of Altar of Plagues eighteen-minute behemoths. In the spaces where Kelly doesn't sing in his choral-like grandeur, he lets the ominous beat - courtesy of producer The Haxan Cloak - settle in a groove that reminds of Burial in which little aural layers are gradually added or removed. In an epic culmination Kelly joins in once again with his haunted voice. It's majestic. - Thomas

WIFE - Dans Ce