Michelle - After Dinner We Talk Dreams Review
I don't know about you, but I'm spending way too much time doom scrolling these days. Thank fuck happy music still exists. Suppose you asked me the ingredients or what kind of primordial ooze could birth some of my favourite transcendental happy music moments. I'd look wistful for a moment and say to you, get me a New York summertime pronto. Now we're in for a puncher's chance of an alchemical transformation to a higher state of being. Something about the humidity, the dirt, the squeeze of people that makes you forget who you were and where you've been. NYC- collective MICHELLE and their sophomore album, AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS, are the proverbial burst fire hydrant cooling us off on a street corner somewhere in Bushwick sometime long after midnight.
The collective, compromising of vocalists Sofia D'Angelo, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee and producers Jamee Lockard and Julian Kaufman have crafted a pop-infused and soulful love letter to their city and each other. The songs slide effortlessly between 90s influenced R&B and catchy pop melodies. The album begins with the sleepily groovy R&B MESS U MADE. All BOYZ II Men choruses, silky guitar riffs, laid back drums, and bass lines- heartbreak has never sounded so chill. The groove is only broken by the singer's screeching admission that they were a bitch!
Composure is quickly restored, and the song crescendos with, 'Home is a circus I'm done being worthless,' they're moving on, and so are we. EXPIRATION DATE, a song about a one-sided relationship, is surprisingly sad. However, the collective's pop engines are starting to fire on all cylinders. On the first few listens, the sneakily catchy chorus diverted my attention from the emotion of the insightful lyrics. POSE continues to do much of the same in a sultry disco pep talk celebration of dancing by yourself. In many ways, this is an understated album, and on the first few listens, I just nodded along, happy to be taken on the ride. This says a lot about the layers the production brings to the songwriting, something that I'm sure being a collective, not a band, has a lot to do with. But on top of the slick production are insightful takes on love, heartbreak, and friendship.
Having been born straddling technological leaps, I have inherited the cliches of my previous generation's artistic representations of technologies. I am always impressed when our modern technologies are seamlessly put into songs. To state something blindingly obvious, it's insane how reachable we are at any point in the day. With read receipts etc., the pressure to be connected is never-ending. So, when I heard NO SIGNAL, a lovely early 2000s caked earworm, I nodded in approval and found a quiet anthem for some me-time.
Their introspection isn't without humour; we get down to business on END OF THE WORLD. It's the end of the world so let's get fucking, 'Y2K, fuck me like the end of the world, it's ok tomorrow there'll be nothing at all.' We survived Y2k, I think. Retro apocalypses are a little less doomy. However, as you know, shit is going down, and I'll happily take MICHELLE's advice here.
The album ends on a high note with MY FRIENDS, a song that the album's title alludes to. A celebration of friendship, the desire to dream of better things and just basically hang out with people you dig. We are emerging from strange times into I don't know what. Still, something about the positivity of the album gives me hope for the future. AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS is not perfect, some of the songs could have been cut to make it a bit punchier, but that's it. As the trumpet and piano played me out at the end of MY FRIENDS, I wasn't thinking that, though. I was thinking about New York summers.