Forget the DONDA Album. Here’s an essay.
We’re in a car together. I’m driving, my phone is connected to Bluetooth, and my damaged iPhone dongle is practically shooting sparks at you from beyond it’s frayed wire.
You have just finished spewing a passive-aggressive speech on how Tyler the Creator’s song “EARFQUAKE!” is comparable to Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.
I nod, and respond by saying that “no”, the artist most under-deserved is in fact Clyde Lawrence from the band “Lawrence”.
He sings in the same chromatic scale of his brass section, often opting to hit a jazzy flat note instead of the crowd-pleasing high note. His lyrics are not just about love, but instead are aesthetics gospel ballad about a trip to the E.R., schoolyard crushes, and the music industry overall.
Clyde Lawrence writes a song like Sondheim writes a musical. The horn motif from the beginning of the song? It’s going to pay off at the end, after the key change.
For the last song of their newest album, he reprises the dominating melody of every earlier song. His songs use no less than sixteen chords (except for one notable omission in which the first lyric laments, “It’s been a while since I wrote a song with the same four chords”.
In another one of his songs, he makes subversive comments about his disillusionment with the music industry:
“I’m getting sick of the industry. I have enough of the make believe, oh please, oh please. Am I lost or found? I’m getting sick of the ups and down, no need to give me the run-around”
For an indie band whose music videos peak at around 100,000 views, they seem transcended above other artists. This band gets rejected by labels, refuses to conform to a standard, and remains hopelessly charming and innocent.
They are the first band who seems self-aware of their talent, capture it beautifully, and speak with refreshing clarity. If you listen to their lyrics, there’s no innuendo or generalized description of a lover. Nope, after one session of listening you’ll learn they like pad-thai, prefer when girls approach men when dating, and are unabashedly from New York.
On their first albums, Clyde Lawrence performed upbeat funk songs alone, sometimes sounding like a celebratory communion hymn at a Catholic church. In later albums, his younger sister Gracie Lawrence lent her prodigious voice to certain tracks. Even the youngest brother can be heard in ad-libs. Through time, Clyde has tried incorporating 808 bass sounds into his records, turning up the drums, or adding a rap verse. But the Lawrence sound is unmistakable: you simply love it or hate it.
In our car, you simply nod, make a mental note to hear their music, and forget about it immediately. Meanwhile, I’m having a separate thought: “What I wouldn’t do to go through their voice memos.”
