Lewis Taylor

The opening salvo in one of the weirdest careers in recent popular music, Lewis Taylor stunned a faithful few when it was first released in 1996. Soon after, Taylor was earning plaudits from the likes of Aaliyah and D’Angelo, who subsequently invited him to New York for a writing session Taylor pulled the plug on before it even began. It’s easy to hear why. Taylor’s neo-soul debut was a bravura listening experience, an album that effortlessly negotiated a tightrope between faithful R&B, prog-informed song writing, and arrangements that were as wildly experimental as they were sensual. Taylor’s voice – a woozy, dream-like shimmer-vision of Marvin Gaye – gave the whole thing its emotional core, a near-exhausted heaviness. There’s so much going on in here, though – Hendrix-like guitar immolation; dusty, Shuggie Otis-esque minimalism; and check the likes of “Asleep When You Come,” a b-side subsequently included on the album’s 2016 deluxe edition, a broken, sluggish stumble whose production is as wild as anything on Japanese labels like Shi-Ra-Nui or Soup Disk. Startling stuff.