"Blue Light", the fourth single from future R&B singer-songwriter Kelela's critically acclaimed debut album Take Me Apart (2017), has a simple plot and an oblique metaphor. The song's chorus contains most of its external action ('I'm on my way right now/ Promise I won't be long/ Baby, keep the blue light on'), but its main focus is the pleasure - and danger - that you expose yourself to when diving head-first into intimacy with a significant other. There is a reckless, intoxicating urgency here ("I want you where you are right now"), but also a burgeoning anxiety about the very thought of reassuming a position of vulnerability ("My chains, they come falling down, down/ My chains, they come falling down"). Kelela's masterful vocals open the song with sensual whispers on the song's verses, and then harden - due to subtle panic at the threat of emotional instability - during the chorus.
Unlike the album's lead single ("LMK"), which comes with a production that stays closer to Kelela's '90s R&B vocal inspirations, the production on "Blue Light" - courtesy of Dubble Dutch, with additional production from Bok Bok, Ariel Rechtshaid, Terror Danjah and Maroof - heads into decidedly electronic territory. The large number of cooks have not spoilt the broth: there is enough space for Kelela's vocals to fluidly metamorphose from one layer of emotion to the next. The visceral synths and subtle percussion lend an otherworldly menace to the shifts in her emotional state, hinting at a deep internal complexity that is struggling for self-awareness (before she even arrives at her lover's location). The accompanying music video - where you get to watch her 'have sex' with her hair - visually packages this dynamic in a sultry and minimalist Afro-futurist aesthetic. Her thick dreadlocks undress her, caress her body and threaten to strangle, but Kelela remains rooted in place and posture as she takes in all these sensations.
