Take Me Apart By Kelela Is One Of The Best Albums Of The Last Decade
With Unclenching Clarity And Confidence The Cutting Edge RnB Auteur Explores Post Break Up Trauma Like No Other Artist
Tristan Young @talltristan
Kelela never had a break out moment, not really. She wasn’t part of a pop culture event or had a song of the summer. She never had a video of the year or a crazy zeitgeist occurrence that would come to define a singular, if fleeting, moment in time. She doesn’t come from a generational lineage or have a famous last name. She wasn’t born into this or born to do this. She was in underground progressive metal bands and worked dead end jobs. She wasn’t sure if she was cut out for this kind of industry. She worked for everything, often unsure of anything- in the world of music or her own personal ecosystems. Unlike many contemporaries who have left indelible and undeniable marks on the medium, Kelela’s impact is less encompassing. Her progressive posturing and creative ambition have branched out from music in to the world of fashion where her insights and auteur instincts have garnered her much well earned respect, but she remains somewhat niche. While one could argue that being less of a foundational fixture in music gives her more institutional freedoms to take risks, it’s hard to imagine Kelela ever doing anything but. Her lyrical acumen and sonic style is defined by interrogating her own emotional state at its most fragile. She has made monolithic statements of towering grandeur by exposing her most potent vulnerabilities for the world to see and listen to. Indeed, Kelela has made a career of risks synonymous with the ones we take every day in our personal lives. In doing so, by documenting the profound expressions of her own demoralization and joy, isolation and celebration, she quietly released one of the best albums of the last decade- Take Me Apart.
“White people don’t understand the reason black people are so good is not always that we’re necessarily more artistically inclined, it’s because we don’t have the space to suck”. That was her scathing, but no less acute assessment of her experiences thus far in the music industry, and that of many of her fellow black artists. For all of the celebration of black culture that that has taken shape in the medium, succeeding the dwindling influence of dance hall and indie rock that defined the 2000s, it is still an industry controlled by mostly white people. The people running the labels, the business of art, did not share or understand her experiences. This was a dichotomy Kelela furiously and ambitiously wanted to push against. Following the positive feedback form her 2013 mixt tape Cut 4 Me, she found a willing partner of this pursuit in Warp Records. A partner is perhaps to overstate and oversimplify the relationship. Rather she found a label that understood its role was to step back, support from the sidelines, and to observe and respect Kelela’s process with producers of her choosing. A towering icon over the electronic and indie scene, Warp has helped curate a catalogue that includes Boards Of Canada, Flying Lotus, Aphex Twin, and Yves Tumor- legends and pioneers of their craft all at once. They were lucky to get Kelela on board.
With a creative and production arsenal firmly at her disposal, Kelela questioned herself often about how to responsibly wield it. The politics of a black musician and their work grow ever more complicated with each pronounced statement or artistic ennui. While Kelela observed something of an onus or mandate on herself to design a project emblematic of the black experience, that wasn’t necessarily what was on her mind. Was it a missed opportunity to not explicitly build a narrative around her experiences as a black queer person trying to break into a medium that has at times been hostile to her? What does it say about that medium where such questions are automatically implicit solely due to her demographic? The lack of emphatic politics would come to portend a not easily dismissed modicum of anxiety during the process of recording her first LP. Kelela wanted to make something for black people- for black women specifically, but ultimately decided not to consign her self to the rigors of the political moment de jour. Expressing the values and struggles of her community purely through the reductive lens of normative politicking could one day yield diminishing returns, rendering the representation of that community as a homogenous bloc of specifically defined and static characteristics, not as individuals. She had grander ambitions, channelling the core attributes at the foundation of her character, that she felt could be universally interpreted, even if expressed through intensely personal experiences. The project would express the joy and catharsis of unrepentant vulnerability and the strength one can derive from exposing yourself in such terms- traits she felt were fundamentally emblematic of black women. Kelela wanted to make the ultimate break up record.
image via The Guardian
Of course these rhetorical and lyrical concepts have been interrogated with such granular and sweeping detail that the notion of one so committed to those experiences may seem redundant. However Take Me Apart offers a level of depth, and more importantly chronology, than most analogous material. While a great deal of music of this ilk will litigate certain feelings and sensations related to the end of a relationship- despair, defiance, guilt, elation- Kelela affixes them to specific moments along an intricate, albeit linear timeline. Furthermore, she goes many extra miles, turning what could become the final climatic moment of a relationship that’s reached it’s conclusion and frames it as merely the beginning of the story. The album acknowledges that breaking up isn’t simply a righteous set of proclamations and then an outro. It’s a much longer and more drawn out experience than we would like to acknowledge. It’s never truly over until you can take the lessons one can extract from a painful experience and apply them to future ones, lest we all become trapped in a spiral of cyclical personal failures. That starts with how you feel about yourself.
To this end, Take Me Apart documents not just the incendiary and defiant end to a relationship, but its messy aftermath. Album opener Frontline is a confident and damning declaration to assert ones independence no matter the hardship and pain it may cause. Despite the familiarity and comfort, Kelela takes the risk to walk away from it all, all but demanding her partner understand why she is doing this. As the music warbles with delicate synth waves you can sense her building up her fortitude to take this messy and uncertain step forward; as she finally musters the stamina, “Anything I left behind don’t mean nothing now”, the beat matches her flourishing and vivid charisma, dropping into a domineering electronica fused Rhythm and Grime cut. With a newfound sense of rhythmic assurance, her increased confidence metastasizes into her becoming increasingly confrontational. She grows bolder and more aggrieved, chastising her errant partner, “cry and talk about it baby but it aint no use”. The rhythm, for all its grace and smooth wave from bass, implies a laborious and heavy hearted dynamic. Kelela’s saturating and pursuant voice wrenches in pain, “You’ll always deny that we’re going in circles”, finally pleading, “Why are you testing me? I’m not the one”. She is trying to convince herself as much as her partner that this is over. As the beat finally exhausts itself and the clipping sounds of heels stalk the background, as if to intimate that she is at last walking way, one can’t help but wonder if Frontline was the best day of Kelela’s life or the worst.
This is usually where a story- or album- would end. Take Me Apart has a long way to go still. The dizzying back and forth stratagem of the post breakup relationship, the slips ups and acts of desperation, wallowing in pity and isolation, the final wrenching endpoint when you realize there is no going back, are all intimately explored with a resounding sense of discovery. The tenderly warm track Waitin immaculately merges those moments of weakness that give into post break up seduction with how the opaque distortions of nostalgia from a now sundered relationship can act like a cudgel. Or as Kelela puts it more succinctly, “saw you then it fucked me up”. The enveloping comfort of the soft and buoyant synth accompanies the emotional gymnastics she orients through to try and justify falling back into her partner’s arms. “We’re getting looks but they can say what they wanna say”, she asserts as her voice grows more muscular and sinuous. Waitin doesn’t frame these desires as ruinous or naïve, rather a natural part of a long and strenuous process, furthermore asserting that once the intimate primacy of a relationship is removed it’s possible to observe the good in a person that just wasn’t right for you, “despite what you took I still miss what you gave”. That duality is complicated but necessary.
Having established that this will be serpentine odyssey, Kelela explores the consequences of her decisions, how they help her ascend to points of euphoric epiphany but also plummet her into a nadir of trauma and near delirium. Her new found dynamic proves revelatory in the eponymous track Take Me Apart as she finds opportunities to grow emotionally and in a physical space. She projects this new sense of intrepidness in all directions, towards her former lover and potential future relationships testing out her inchoate thesis. A dreary and mournful post mortem on her past life rises with energy, fuelled by a lively acapella background giving her the momentum to insist that a partner learn to understand her on all levels. “Don’t say you’re in love till you learn to take me apart”, becomes something of a rallying cry for demanding that she deserves better. Such staunch self-determination however does not come without a price. This newfound sense of urgency and self worth puts to rest any chance of reconciliation with her ex. The stressful and destabilizing track Enough is a shuddering array of entrenched, spasmic synth and percussion. It’s at this point she realizes there is no going back, “I’m so tired but I can’t ignore”, no matter how much she would like to acquiesce to this easier option. Her voice, usually so resolute and commanding, gets lost in the chaotic drum shuffle and sequencer echoes, like she is a shell of a person; the sonic metaphor of being no longer complete is hard to ignore. The churning march of the drums and the stunningly morose candour of the synth imply a dutiful eulogy-like definition to the song that Kelela runs with almost literally, “when the high dies, I fall apart”.
image via thefader
The jubilant chants of Take Me Apart and the sundering despair of Enough smartly segues into a more quiet and contemplative mid point for the album. Kelela is drained mentally and emotionally, opting to gear down in the subsequent tracks Jupiter and Better. As is often the case, Jupiter gets its name from the eponymous synthesizer that comprises the majority of the instrumentals in the track. Owing its designation to the spaced out and isolated tones it produces, the synth gives the melody a distant, lost, and reflective verve. As the beat moves into higher octaves to mimic Kelela’s ethereal tone, it sounds unnatural and alien. Kelela seems resigned to her fate, unconvinced she can move on (fun fact: Kelela was initially inspired to work on this one after jamming out on a Jupiter Synth in the basement of the Waldorf in Vancouver). However, ruminating on and exhuming the past in isolation does yield actionable steps and eventually a path forward. She cautiously comes out of her hermetic exile in Better, addressing her ex from a hopefully plutonic perspective. Set to a bluesy 80s melodrama vibe- one that Kelela was concerned was a little too close to a Phil Collins hook at first- she pleads with her former partner that they may still have a path forward as friends, “Remember I said we would be closer if we took some time further apart”, she offers. She is uncharacteristically compelled almost to beg, “Didn’t it make you better/ I know it made me better”. While salvaging the relationship in some form is no doubt a noble endeavour, the underlying subtext is Kelela needs the end point of this relationship to be something other than a dynamic that circles her right back into the cycles that caused its untimely demise. Kelela is ready to meet someone knew, and this time things need to be different.
The following tracks LMK, Truth Or Dare, and SOS act as a set of interstitial triplets, espousing on exactly what you would hope a person in Kelela’s narrative position would do at this point- start getting herself out there. Far from a mental state or even point of interest to find the next fixture in her life, these tracks focus on superfluous flirtations, late night booty calls, and experimenting with the lessons learned from past experiences in low stakes contexts. She applies her neophyte persona- one that demands better for herself and articulates a greater depth of emotional scrutiny- onto new scenarios in the twitchy and playful funk of Truth Or Dare. The drums slap and carelessly collide with tweaked out guitar licks as she relishes in reintegrating into a mode of frivolous hook ups, if only for a little while. “It aint that deep baby”, she assures in LMK, despite the cavernous and bellowing boom clap of the bass indicating that maybe this is having more of an affect on her than she is ready to acknowledge. As she dips her toes into ultimately inconsequential dalliances she moves to orient herself as firmly in command, training herself to set the standards for which she will judge her contentment, no longer being subservient solely to the preferences of someone else. “I aint getting nowhere moving at your pace so let me know”, signalling just how able she is to move on at this point. The versical flow that leads up to the chorus serves as a palpable expression of just how assured Kelela has become. Things take a turn for pastoral ambience in the euphoric SOS. The delphic haze of the surreal hums and synth intimate a transition from aimless late night calls into something more destabilizing; something that can unmoor her from her confident stability.
These intangible implications take on a more corporal form in the next sequence of tracks as Kelela finally enters into a new relationship. In “Blue Light” possibly falling in love again, the consequences of such a development registers as almost threatening, amidst the contorted processing of her voice. “Although I’ve hardened/darling my guard is down/ when I know you’re around”, she admits with just an air of defeat. Kelela seems slightly exasperated by this development, forced to ascertain in much more urgent contexts if she really has learned anything from past relationships about what she wants for herself. That urgency is dialled up to a torrent of stress within the claustrophobic vectors of Onanon. The fastest BPM of any track on the album, Kelela hurries along to outpace her own ghosts and regrets, but finds herself surrounded by the present. The swiftness of that realization registers convincingly as she begins to relate things to her partner she has only just herself understood in near real time. Kelela laments, “It doesn’t help that I watch your every single move like I wanna fight with you”. The demoralizing circumstances of seeing her relationship once again deteriorate amidst constant infighting gives her a mandate to push back. She strikes a remarkable balance between forceful and nurturing as she tries to convince her partner, “It’s not a break up it’s just a break down”. The beat itself undergoes a similar collapse as Onanon ends on a note of ominous ambiguity, “You don’t know why you always react, I don’t know why I always fight back”. More so than any point in Take Me Apart, Kelela is trying her hardest- but she knows it may not be enough.
This brings Kelela to her lowest point in the album. “First of all I’m not new to this”, begins Turn to Dust. Grieving strings accompany her in a state of defeat and exhaustion. She is right back were she was at the beginning of Frontline, this time drained of that defiance and confidence. Drained of everything, she is battered and fragile. That sense of finality sets in as the violins thud like a wounded pulse, as Kelela once again finds herself on the cusp of leaving- “I’m tired of trying I’m about to walk out the door”. The looming gothic beat subsides for a warmer rendition as she whispers in a rejoinder to herself, “but one look at you and I turn to dust”. Finally a crucial differential from the prologue emerges- her partner, for one reason or another, was able to convince her to stay. This builds to the quiet and brief interlude Bluff. While not the final track on the album, it is the endpoint of the story, and a resoundingly endearing one. After the near collapse of Onanon and Turn To Dust, Kelela learns that all of that joy, ambition, and confidence is something you need to share together. Her partner just reassured her they still had a chance, now she has to do the same. At her warmest and most sincere Kelela gently assures, “I’m gonna prove you wrong/here we go jumping in the deep end”. The pianos are still soft and cautious, but scaling upward with optimism. These sentiments could perhaps be conveyed within a single song. That Kelela meticulously organized them across an album makes this by no means inevitable endpoint so much more satisfying.
image via The Guardian
Album closer Altadena exudes a triumphant tone however acts as something of a non canonical (in terms of the narrative) epilogue- or perhaps meta outro. It charts a clear distinction from the story she has been telling for the entirety of the album. Named after the part of LA where producer Jam City was working when he helped craft the beat, it serves as a direct message to present and future contemporaries that this industry is navigable, that you can bend it to your will. She sounds triumphant and operatic, but ultimately content, when she boasts, “and now I think I know/that I don’t know nothing at all”. The implication that despite a seemingly insurmountable amount of uncertainty, you will have have what it takes to succeed. The twinkle of arpeggio when she sings acts as something of an analogue of a friendly wink right at you; despite the slow tempo, it’s unmistakably thrilling,
Take Me Apart is the result of many producers and engineers building a sound scape that is dynamic and voluminous, but it’s Kelela’s voice that is the true stand out. Alternating between icy slickness and radiating warmth, her vocals are penetrative and transfixing. A futuristic veneer coats her hypnotic chants as the chorus kicks in for Frontline, intimating the bleeding edge design of deep house electronica. The churning depth and grace she exhibits in Waitin, “cause winter’s always warmest when you’re ‘round”, produces multiple contact highs- rattled bones, dilated pupils, goose bumps. Kelela sounds velvety and undulating, her words fraught with peril and intrigue for sustained bouts in LMK as if the album was taking a brief sojourn into the genre of thriller. Her voice becomes imbued with tension and risk in Onanon, pushing up against every thematic obstacle she encounters with abandon, right up to the edge. Often times, Kelela is all edges. Yet that daunting soprano registers as matriarchal and tender in the ambient doldrums of Jupiter. Even as she pushes her vocals to a final climatic zenith in Altadena, Kelela’s luxurious and silken word play remains endearing. Her ability to compound and synthesize romantic overtures and piercing confrontation into a single cohesive and coherent aesthetic puts the album far beyond its contemporaries.
That dichotomous approach proves vital for Kelela successfully finding the intersectional points between unwavering strength and raw vulnerability, and why Take Me Apart feels so thematically robust. Throughout the album Kelela is disarmingly bold in exploring her inner fears and neurosis, framing that excavation as a source of unwavering strength and a path to contentment with who she is- even separate from another person. As her voice quivers and surrenders to slight introversion in the bridge of Frontline she speaks as if to assure herself more so than anyone else, “it’s on me I’m staying up/don’t wait up/cause they’re betting on me”. The inference is that she herself is not quite convinced but understands the urgency to reach this mental context. Conversely in Waitin, her delivery is sultry, dense, and confidently pronounced, and yet she humbles herself to admit, “Saw you then it fucked me up”. Kelela takes the dialectic approach of observing that confidence with out humility is arrogance, and humility without confidence is weakness- and without that balance you’ll never be alright in your own skin, let alone a relationship. “Where you going baby”, she out right demands in an interrogative sense in Take Me Apart, only to admit to her dependency in the next lyric, “without kissing me goodbye?” The distorted sonic cacophony of Enough is one of the most destabilizing moments in the album, and it’s here that she resigns herself, “can’t you see that I’m standing by myself”. It’s an interesting time to admit her despair and solitude. This dynamic operates in a cross sectional way amongst the tracks- notice how adamantly confrontational she is Onanon and then transitions into Turn To Dust where she is her most subdued and scared.
image via Spin
This distillation of sensitivity and presenting it in a commanding form intersects with other ambitions related to Take Me Apart in integral ways. Kelela previously argued that being so confidently tender was a key trait of blackness, and yet she would have to be vigorously- aggressively even- in charge of all aspects of production and vision to ensure that balance was achieved. Kelela elaborates in a Time Magazine interview upon the album’s release:
“The way I think about it that I’m being super tender and so vulnerable and wearing my heart on my sleeve in a world that is not at all considering my well being and in an industry and a context as an artist that is not kind to me. That is not made for me to be successful. So that’s how I would have those two things intersect”.
Finding that thematic purpose, rationalizing it with the context of her own personal story that aims towards self acceptance, and articulating it through the auspices of an at least partially sympathetic record label proves to be a convincing combination.
As one anticipates from an album coming from Warp’s pedigree, Take Me Apart deepens the connection between traditional RnB as well as rhythm and grime with atmospheric electronica in fascinating ways. With key production credits going to Bok Bok, Jam City, Arca, as well as contributions from Romy XX, the album excels in its nuanced experimentalism while taking cues from the down tempo wave forms of how RnB operates. Melodies are heavy and tense, often perforated by scattered sonic miasma as in Enough, Blue Light, and Onanon, but still display grace and elegance. Tones are deep and burrowing in moments along Frontline, LMK and Take Me Apart, but they avoid the frivolous glitz and flash. Instead they contribute to an ambient pulse while Kelela herself focuses the kinetic energy. There’s a great deal of understated futurism in the glossy deep house textures of Frontline or the reimagined takes on classic soul via pillowy soft synth in Waitin. Arca’s contributions and input in Enough unsurprisingly makes for esoteric and cyclonic bouts of chaotic synth and messy drum machines, perfectly mirroring Kelela’s mental state at that moment. Her ideas are further grafted directly on to Kelela’s vocals with the vocoder tinged manipulation to her wails in Blue Light. Big, bright pop electronica provides LMK with a veritable high of euphoric endorphins, while the more noir and slightly glitched out beat processing of Onanon secures the album a spot in the genetic line of Aphex Twin and Caribou as much as Solange.
Which is not to suggest that Take Me Apart needs to be lumped in within any other genre markers or iconic representations of them. Much like Kelela, the album never truly was acknowledged in that regard, nor did it need to be. Its importance will not be measured by its relevance or impact, as it seems to comfortably exist in the realm of acclaimed if under appreciated gems of the later half of the previous decade. Take Me Apart does matter though, as a stirring document of production, writing, and performance synergistically operating at their peak levels and sustaining them. It’s an example of how amenable different genres can be to each other and how all of these aspects can work in tandem towards one fiercely singular vision. Ultimately, Kelela’s Take Me Apart is an ode to nothing and no one beyond herself, because that is- of course- where you always have to start.