12 little spells

"Joining her on this tactile journey of sensation are longtime associates guitarist Matthew Stevens and drummer Justin Tyson. Together they craft deeply ambient, intricately constructed songs that fall yet further afield of the crossover jazz, fusion, and R&B that garnered Spalding so much of her early praise. In that sense, the album is a worthy follow-up to Emily's D+Evolution and 2012's Radio Music Society, but one that may keep her more jazz-oriented fans at arm's length".

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"Esperanza Spalding's enthusiasm for bundling her releases with attention-grabbing concepts - like writing and recording an entire album in an uninterrupted 77-hour livestream, or dedicating each song on her new LP, 12 Little Spells, to a different body part - might make it seem like she's attempting to mask some shortcoming in the actual music. But that couldn't be further from the truth. The Grammy-winning bassist/vocalist/composer, a former child prodigy steeped in classical and jazz but bounded by neither, is well over a decade into one of the most fruitful and strikingly original careers in contemporary pop".

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