In a perfect musical world, the utterance of the name “Taylor” would just as easily evoke the gloriously poppy, soulful, jazzy mélange, dreamy voice and soothing, easy grooving aesthetic of Taylor Kelly as it does that other chick who’s dating the famous football player.
Beyond her ample artistry and unique talent to make her own angsty therapy somehow sweetly inviting and universally relatable, one of the greatest blessings this Taylor (not just a singer/songwriter, but a killer trumpet player and horn arranger too!) gives us on her third EP The Spins is a list of what she was vibing too at the time she wrote each song.
This allows those of us who love discovering new artists (or learning about ones we should have always known about) dive deep into the same rabbit hole the singer was in when she wrote these six absolutely masterful gems. So for the opening track “Sometimes” – which curiously begins with a minute long echoey piano-vocal and wordless vocal duet that showcases the crazy range of her voice – Taylor draws us into her experience with sensual, hypnotic chill/neo soul energy that draws as much gravitas from R&B/pop singer Kiana Lede and British neo-soul singer Mahalia as Beyonce and Destiny’s Child.
The dual lead single “Fit In” (which blends sensual soothe with finger snapping cool and trippy synth atmospheres) backed by the jazzy, snazzy, brassy funk-jazz of “Take Me” offers a grand opportunity to check out Aussie jazz/funkers Hiatus Kaiyote, and jazz quintet Butcher Brown, Lianne La Havas and Victoria Monet, in addition to the more perhaps familiar magic of Emily King and Erykah Badu. And on and on…It feels like Taylor, while sharing the depths of her soul and the nuts, bolts and fruits of her therapy sessions (including some literal sound bites from sessions on “Fit In”), is inviting us to create a playlist dedicated to her numerous inspirations (which naturally includes Billie Eilish on the ambient ethereal soul meditation “Ain’t It Funny.”)
Beyond the overall atmosphere and intricacies of her music – which she co-produced with multi-instrumentalist Eoin Murphy – and her brilliant musicianship, The Spins EP further reflects Taylor’s compelling and insightful storytelling skills and cements her status as a keen chronicler of both the existential and personal struggles of those of her generation. As she says, “The EP is really me being present with myself and all my intrusive thoughts,” processing her OCD in song, in some cases before she was even officially diagnosed.
Over the trippy electronic percussion, off-kilter synth lines and horn bursts on the slow building, then therapeutically exploding “Attention,” she sings these revelatory lines: “Just wanna be honest with myself/Feels like I can’t stop walking in circles.” On “Fit In,” no amount of caressing soul charm in the music can soften the pain of acknowledging lines like, “I wish I didn’t think I was dying every time I have an ache or pain/I guess I’m thirty now and I need to get used to it/Maybe Take Some Medication/I just wanna get away…” That gem’s unusual extended outro is also significant in that she textures wafting yet deeply emotional wordless vocals with countless chant-like utterances of “ok, ok, ok” – after “Get it all out in the open so I can feel okay.” It’s like if she says it enough times, she will literally convince herself (and us by extension) to be okay.
Writing the title track “The Spins” after seeing Andrew Goldring (yet another for the playlist!) at World Café Live, Taylor comes to terms with the fact that though life is full of maddening contradictions, maybe that’s the point of it and we shouldn’t always see it as a necessarily bad thing: “How can I be sad and glad to be here at the same time/All the pain and all the light/Oh what a beautiful life.” It’s a self-admitted “breezy and bouncy” attempt to “make you feel some kind of relief despite it being about spiraling out in a sense.” With every turn of phrase helping us know her inner workings better, and true vocal magic and musical genius to boot, Taylor Kelly is a confessional singer for the ages whose multitude of talents is breathtaking to behold.
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