Esperanza Spalding - Emily’s D+Evolution, album review: ‘stupendous’

Grammy winning bassist, vocalist and bandleader Esperanza Spalding gives us a fulsome dose of space-age soul, steering a Mothership crewed by a power trio, producer Tony Visconti and her offbeat alter ego, Emily.

Fusing elements of jazz, funk, prog rock, Captain Beefheart-style weirdness and even musical theatre, it’s a project that was developed on the road and partly recorded before a studio audience.

Each song has its own world, its own planet: One is a gorgeous, Sarah Vaughn-esque flight of fancy. Earth to Heaven recalls Steely Dan and mid ‘70s Joni Mitchell; Good Lava is a melodically sophisticated slice of hard funk.

With lyrics spanning feminism, existentialism and racial injustice, and arrangements as accessible as they are challenging, Spalding has created one of the most exciting, musically inventive things you’ll hear all year. Stupendous.

(Concord Records)