Amid all the dense and amorphous elements found on Shabazz Palaces 2011 album Black Up, there was one you felt like you could reach out and touch. On a handful of tracks, a pair of forcible female vocalists cut through the seductive murk, anchoring the songs and lodging their voices in your brain. “Play it then, let my soul unwind,” one sang on “Swerve… the reeping of all that is worthwhile (Noir not withstanding)”. At the very end of the track, the other rapped with patient conviction: “So still it morphed, this shit is way too advanced.” The voices were those of Catherine Harris-White and Stasia Irons, respectively, the duo behind Seattle neo-soul/avant-rap duo THEESatisfaction.
Following a handful of self-released Bandcamp mixtapes, awE naturalE marks THEESatisfaction’s proper debut, and their post-Black Up introduction to the world through Sub Pop. The album stands on its own as a fresh take on dense neo-soul, jazz, and rap fusion, but it also functions as a component of a larger piece. It’s solid proof that they weren’t merely vocalists auditioned for a part by Palaceer Lazaro, but part of a symbiotic relationship that must have much deeper roots. As Irons and Harris-White’s were on Black Up, Lazaro’s fingerprints are all over this record, including guest verses over the minimal-jazz of “God” and the alien-like, wobble-warped “Enchantruss”. On a more understated level, unconventional song structures– there are few hooks or choruses or neatly measured verses here– subtly reveal themselves the way they did on Black Up. Perhaps it’s the result of a close artistic partnership, or a reflection of the contemporary music scene in Seattle, but the music of Lazaro and THEESatisfaction sounds as though it’s working toward the same goal, even when released as separate entities.
What is that common goal? Like Lazaro has done in the last couple of years, THEESatisfaction find a way to draw from the early-1990s backpack era and break new (and sometimes strange) ground while staying on the right side of the line between groovy and granola. Songs meander through psychedelic loops built around jazz or funk instrumentation, starting punchily in one place and ending abruptly somewhere altogether different. Most clock in well under three minutes. That sort of free-flowing structural approach lends itself well to Irons and Harris-White’s stream-of-consciousness lyrical mode, a smooth rapping/singing tag-team effort.
The content here is cryptic but almost always obliquely political, brushing on the experiences that come along with being black lesbians in America. “My melanin is relevant/ It’s something to be had,” they chant on “Deeper”. “I said, ‘Ow! I am the bitch on the side,'” the two sing together on “Bitch”, narrating an inner monologue of friendship and romantic struggle. At a time when politically conscious rap is viewed with skepticism, that sort of territory becomes tricky to navigate, but Irons and Harris-White pull it off. They come over as ultra-positive Queens of the Stoned Age who prioritize uninhibited genre exploration and good vibe-seeking above all.
At some point in 2009, the duo uploaded a goofy video they’d filmed of themselves talking at the webcam, grinning and telling their fans what a good month they’d had. The music in the background was Digable Planets’ “Black Ego”, which points explicitly to the tradition they’re helping to carry on along with Lazaro. awE naturalE, like Black Up, is a pleasantly surprising resurrection of the Pacific Northwest-via-Brooklyn hippie-hop that we never might have anticipated a few years ago. Much of the music from that era doesn’t hold up, but THEESatisfaction have an ear for what was worth saving, and the mantra on uptempo album highlight “QueenS”– “Whatever you do, don’t funk with my groove”– still has legs.