Dorian offers us a prayer...
[8.25]
Total writers: 8
Highest score: [10]
Lowest score: [6]
Controversy index: 1.31
[8.25]
Total writers: 8Highest score: [10]
Lowest score: [6]
Controversy index: 1.31
Dorian Sinclair: OKAN's invocation of the goddess Oshun has real power to it, and, as befits a deity so strongly associated with water, real depth as well. The layers of percussion, synth and violin are ever-changing, finding new ways to refract off each other as they wrap around Elizabeth Rodriguez's vocal lead. And what a voice it is -- expressive, forceful, and somehow simultaneously commanding and vulnerable. I don't speak Lucumi, but Rodriguez easily conveys both loss and resilience, as the shifting tides of the instrumentation pool around her.
[10]
Peter Ryan: Magdelys Savigne's blistering percussion is so overpowering that it took me a few listens to key into Rodriguez's vital rhythmic violin-work that underpins most of the track, two obvious virtuosos propelling each other from vibey ceremonial first half through a tenacious conclusion. More prayers should have this urgency.
[8]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The religious services that I have always found meaning within are all exercises in tension and release -- the interplay of hunger, memory, and forgiveness embedded within the day long arc of a Yom Kippur service, the slow, trance-like waking of the early-morning Thai Buddhist rituals my mother and aunt would take me to as a kid. "Oriki Oshun" is not of those particular traditions, but it captures in its four minutes a similar build, sticking tight to a perfectly struck groove until the track flowers into something more, a feast of guitars and chants and rushes of drums that feels like exaltation.
[8]
Read all our writers' blurbs and rate and join the conversation at The Singles Jukebox mothership!