Her curiosity piqued by a photo of
Theaster Gates taken in his workspace,
Corinne Bailey Rae met the artist and activist the next time she played Chicago, where he welcomed her to the Stony Island Arts Bank, a gallery, archive, library, and community center.
Bailey Rae felt profoundly affected inside the South Side monument to Black culture, and returned for an artist residency at the invitation of founder
Gates. She wrote songs informed by her surroundings and experience -- everything from works of art to pages of Ebony and Jet to a dance party soundtracked by the preserved record collection of house pioneer
Frankie Knuckles. Approaching the material as a side project had a liberating effect that allowed her to create without thinking about how the results would be received. Although
Black Rainbows is a uniquely conceptual work and sticks all the way out from
Corinne Bailey Rae,
The Sea, and
The Heart Speaks in Whispers, it's at least as personal as any of the singer's first three albums. Contrary to her reputation for making pillowy adult contemporary R&B,
Bailey Rae started in a punk band that was hard enough to be courted by
Roadrunner Records.
Black Rainbows taps into that spirit more than once. "New York Transit Queen" is a thrashing celebration inspired by a mid-'50s image of future fashion legend Audrey Smaltz. "Erasure," seething and thunderous, was written in response to examining graphically anti-Black postcards. On these songs,
Bailey Rae's buzzing guitar is as much a lead as her full-tilt vocals. Other moments -- the bristly, knocking, and wailing "Black Rainbows," the unfurling incantation "Before the Throne of the Invisible God" -- sound unselfconsciously sculpted, teeming with unbound imagination. The solitary piano ballad, "Peach Velvet Sky," is also a progression; written from the confined and anguished perspective of abolitionist and author Harriet Jacobs, it features
Bailey's most powerful lyrics and vocal performance. The house diversions are suitably carefree, delightfully weird, and just as meaningful. A futuristic paradise is imagined in "Earthlings" through a slow, off-center groove slathered in guitar and concluded by birdsong. In the eight-minute "Put It Down,"
Bailey Rae achieves hard-fought release, distressed over turbulent strings and synthesizers, then seemingly indestructible as her voice slides atop a stout four-four rhythm. "I put it down -- I feel so free" could be the album's subtitle. ~ Andy Kellman
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