It sounds like a terrible idea: combine the sass, control, and syncopated beats of futurist R&B with crackly pre-war big band jazz. Missy Elliott meets Benny Goodman, cyber-rhythms meet clarinet samples. A gimmick you'd have thought would barely last half a track, let alone a whole album.
Think again. 'Stranger On Earth', the debut album from Denver singer Lina, transforms this novelty concept into yet another step forward for the increasingly ambitious and radical R&B scene. Miraculously, it works, with ancient and modern being glued together by Lina's flighty, lyrical voice.
At times, when she drops the warbling and hits a deeper tone - as on 'Don't Say Nothin'' - Lina resembles a more adventurous Macy Gray. The comparison's apposite, since Atlantic are plainly hoping she'll follow Gray's eccentric trajectory of finding success in the UK before going on to take her homeland by storm. To that end, 'Stranger On Earth' is being launched over here first, and the songs will already be familiar to anyone who saw Lina in the lucrative support slot on Craig David's last UK tour.
A cynical operation, perhaps, but given the quality of much here, it's one you'd love to pay off. Amazingly, Lina manages to be both streetwise and quirky, either strutting through terrific first single, 'Playa No Mo'', or being plunged into the Portishead-style atmospherics of the aforementioned 'Don't Say Nothin''. Producer Travis House has evidently learned well from Timbaland, Rodney Jerkins and, especially, The Neptunes' work with Kelis, but there are enough tricks here - beyond the swing samples - to prove he has plenty of ideas of his own. Ironically, it's the song with most history - Dr John's 'Right Place, Wrong Time' - that gets the most brutal treatment, a fierce squelchfunk overhaul.
Lina's evident jazz background and arcane settings have already lead to comparisons with Billie Holiday, but there's little of Holiday's pain and incredible emotional resonance here. Instead, 'Stranger On Earth' is pure, allbeit bizarre, pleasure; a time-travelling, prejudice-defying, jazz-age meets space-age bomb. 2001 will be a remarkable year if mainstream pop sees an odder but more effective album.
