Cécile McLorin Salvant performs the title track to her upcoming album, Oh Snap, live with pianist Sullivan Fortner in a new video you can watch here. The album, due September 19, comprises 12 very personal songs by the singer/composer (plus one cover) mostly recorded outside of a traditional studio environment. The songs showcase her genre-spanning tastes and influences from her 1990s childhood in Miami—from boy bands to grunge to classical to folk—and include party tracks with beats, samba grooves, and quiet folk songs. Salvant wrote the intimate songs as part of a creative quest: To place spontaneity and joy at the center of her writing process.
Cécile McLorin Salvant performs the title track to her upcoming album, Oh Snap, due September 19, live with pianist Sullivan Fortner in a new video. You can watch it here:
Oh Snap comprises twelve very personal songs by Salvant—plus a cover of a verse from the Commodores’ 1977 hit “Brick House”—mostly recorded outside of a traditional studio environment and showcasing her genre-spanning tastes and influences. The album features longtime collaborators Sullivan Fortner, Yasushi Nakamura, and Kyle Poole, as well as cameos from singers June McDoom and Kate Davis. You can pre-order the album here.
The MacArthur Fellow and three-time Grammy-winning singer and composer wrote these short, intimate songs as part of a creative quest: To place spontaneity and joy at the center of her writing process. She originally recorded them alone, at home, never intending for them to be released, using digital tools and effects that she had never played with before, like GarageBand, Logic, AutoTune, Midi plugins, drum loops, vocal effects, reverb, and filters. The songs reflect Salvant’s wide-ranging musical influences from her 1990s childhood in Miami—from boy bands to grunge to classical to folk—and include party tracks with beats, samba grooves, and quiet folk songs.
“I felt I had lost a connection to music because it was something that I felt I should do in a certain way and do well,” she says. “I thought, ‘How can I bring music back in close to me, intimately? ... What would I build if I could just build it alone, based on who I am?’ I was thinking about how free and playful I am with drawing, which I have no training in, but which gives me so much joy ... I thought, ‘How could I approach music this way? How could I use music as a way of journaling?’”
Salvant says of the title track, “I had a very, very specific sound for the vocal that I got through tinkering with these GarageBand and Logic effects and vocal reverbs and things like that. When I started working with Jack DeBoe, who mixed the record, I had a really specific idea of how I wanted the vocal to sound. I am more willing to mess with my voice and make it sound messier and crazier and less clear than others are. Jack, thankfully, was so willing to go there with me and try a bunch of different things ... it was a lot of fun and it was so empowering.”
You can watch the visualizer for the album version of the song here:
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