Get Low by James Vincent McMorrow is a song that caught me completely off guard. I make a habit of listening to some of the Apple Music curated playlists once or twice a month, and Get Low was a little discovery I made on a playlist that showcased the best and newest indie releases. While I went through a brief phase of really enjoying McMorrow's earlier work, I must admit I quickly grew tired of the album. It seemed to me that there was something missing in his songs, something soulful that I felt I could connect with. Get Low is all of that and more.
I'm not completely sold on the rest of McMorrow's 2016 album, but this song makes me really excited about the future of his musical career. This song is folk meets R&B in the best of ways, featuring delicious layered vocals and a rich soulful vocal style that McMorrow had not yet revealed to the world. While the subject matter of the song is not entirely uplifting, it is positioned against a gently groovy musical landscape. This makes it simultaneously really nice to listen to and complex enough to maintain my interest (I realise I'm not an easy customer)
Again and again, I find myself join to music that crosses over different genres. There's something so fresh about combining two musical styles that don't usually belong together. It's what I love about Paul Simon and his successors, the likes of Vampire Weekend and our very own South African Beatenberg. The cross-over of African music and Western pop vocals is a formula that results in an authentic, feel-good sound that I can't get enough of. McMorrow's combination of folksy, electronic and soulful sounds might be just as much of a winner!
I'm going to risk sounding a little too sentimental and say that the beautiful things that happen when we combine musical styles point to a greater truth. That being that as cultures, as people, as nations, we are quite clearly better together.
