On Bugs, the opening track of her third solo album, we find Jamila Woods in the process of falling in love. It doesn’t sound like it at first – her suitor has “a lot of hair, like a lot” and smells so much of weed it makes her feel sick – but eventually all hesitancy falls away and the 34-year-old opens her heart, allowing the song to blossom into an embrace of imperfect romance over glittering psychedelic soul. The result is mesmerising, gorgeous, funny, wise and joyful. It doesn’t last.
Water Made Us sees the Chicagoan musician and poet move away from the inventive and powerful musings on politics, race and patriarchy that made her name to mine her love life for material, tracing the trajectory of a relationship that quickly turns sour and the experience’s lasting scars and lessons. Bugs is followed by the equally brilliant Tiny Garden, a rich, intricately layered, euphorically melodic chronicle of fledgling romance – but before we know it, Woods’ voice is coming distorted and serotonin-drained from the Wreckage Room, and she’s picking over the relationship’s corpse amid atmospherically hushed indie on Wolfsheep.
As she licks her wounds, it’s hard not to miss the verve and wit of the opening tracks, but it makes sense: this is an album from an artist who refuses to sugarcoat human experience. That Woods is able to set her unflinching insight to hook-filled, restlessly genre-blending tunes makes her a talent not to be sniffed at.
