The singer-songwriter has gathered some big names around her for the highly anticipated When I Get Home.
“I made a pilgrimage back to the pagoda of Third Ward Houston to answer this” … Solange declared on her BlackPlanet social media page. To her fans, this suggested that her new album, When I Get Home, would mark something of a return to her roots. Yet, it was recorded in several locations – in California’s Topanga Canyon, New Orleans and on trips to Jamaica. As such, the album feels built from many different influences, from hip-hop to R&B, spoken work to jazz. These kinds of myriad possibilities are part of the thing that has made the album so highly anticipated.
Listeners will not be disappointed. The first track “Things I Imagined,” kicks off with an arrangement in gorgeous unison, between Solange’s voice, a synth underlay, keys and a grand piano. It then swells into something louder and more ecstatic, with the ambiguous lyrics working themselves into intriguing and evocative images. The rest of the nineteen-track album follows suit. It includes a star-studden cast, from Cassie, Metro and Sampha to Earl Sweatshirt, Pharrell, Steve Lacy and Tyler the Creator.
