Debórah Bond’s latest release ‘Madam Palindrome’ is like a trip for your ears. Debórah and her band, Third Logic, masterfully crafted the kind of work that stays fresh throughout. Some of the tracks are spacy and ambient, while others are tight grooves. But throughout the moods of the album the listener can personally connect to the sentiment of each song. Here are some of my personal highlights from the project, sprinkled with quotes from Debórah herself during a rap session she and I had about the album.
As (I hope) you know, a palindrome is a number, word, unit, suffice it to say something that can be seen/read the same backward as it can forward. This project explores in depth the polar opposite similarities between all situations, and the important role of perspective in life and love. The LP holds true in many musical ways to the implication of the album title ‘Madam Palindrome’.
“The concept really is the brainchild of my bass player…“Funky” Chuck (laughs) Evans, (he’s) one member of Third Logic. And we were just brainstorming about what was happening in the lyrics. This was only about 4 or 5 songs in. We just started to notice that the few songs we had were just based off of two points of view. But we also noticed that there was something tying the two views together. Almost to the point that the two views may be felt differently, but the views are really the same…And then one day, he just came in and was like ‘MADAM PALINDROME’… And we went further. If you pay attention, you might find actual palindromes in the lyrics and the music and the artwork.
This is the type of project that if you are willing to listen to it closely and examine it, you will find all sorts of hidden meanings and yes, palindromes. This is the type of project that will spark conversation and make listeners really wonder. And the beauty of perspective is that you all will come up with something different. This was not a project that started out as a concept album. But gradually became one as the creating members began to have realizations about the music that they were producing. So it’s only logical then that the artwork as well, was treated with that same care.
“I had no idea what I wanted the album art work to look like. But I got the original idea from this picture I saw of Tyra Banks and she had like this crazy, peacock, feather thing with bright colors, sort of similar to what I have on now, flowing from off her chest. And I just thought that was cool. I thought to myself if we’re gonna go with a certain look for Madam Palindrome then I want it to be a combination of reality and fantasy, cuz that’s a play on perspective. So I called my friend Shuhei Matsuyama who lives in Japan. He’s a graphic designer and an amazing illustrator. He drew these pictures of me and basically told me what make up to wear and said ‘I’ll do the rest’.… I found a photographer, Lewis Pinckney, and I told him ‘Basically, I’m gonna do exactly what Shuhei draws’. We took the pictures and then I sent them and let Shuhei overlay. And he took it there.”
While the project is available through several electronic retailers like iTunes and Rhapsody in order to see the artwork in the CD’s accompanying booklet you have to actually get the CD. I’ve seen the art work in the booklet and it is indeed a beautiful mesh between what are clearly life images and the play on fantasy inspired by those images of reality.
Debórah Bond used music itself to represent several palindrome perspectives. Like, the glockenspiel that starts and ends the album on ‘Nothing Matters’ and ‘Never Was’, respectively. While the key and patterns differ slightly, there is a marked similarity between the two patterns. For that matter, even some of the lyrical content of those two songs, are quite the same, just from two different perspectives. Of course, happenings like this throughout the album are not coincidence. Bond gives major credit to her band as being a huge driving force behind the direction and execution of the Madam Palindrome concept. Where Bond and Third logic prove themselves exceptional is in being able to always exploit melody and chord progression without ever sounding forced, choppy or just straight up bad.
One of Debórah’s best moments vocally on the album is the second track ‘Perfect’. Employing an ever so light tone for most of the song she shows great control. It’s hard not to want to listen to singers with the capability to truly command those softer notes. “It’s because of love that we’re even here. We wake up every morning still to find a reason to complain. When you take the time it takes to consider it, everything’s perfect the way that it is” she sings over the simple beauty of a piano, acoustic guitar, bass and drums. Classic!
Another track that deserves a very honorable mention is ‘Mr. Day’s Dream’, a mostly instrumental track that is a funked out, jazz, new aged R&B something that you will put on repeat at least once. On the song which originally was just supposed to be an interlude, Ms. Bond does some ad lib work in the background that you should not sleep on. As you begin to hear a computerized voice urging Mr. Day to wake up, a few questions will come into your mind. Who is Mr. Day? Why is she trying to wake him up? Who is trying to wake him up? But I’ll leave you to seek the answer to those questions on your own. It is, after all, about perspective. It really is a trippy song. But it’s hot.
“It was our take on a Pink Floyd song. We wanted it to be tripped out and psychedelic… and honestly we wanted something for the smokers and the tripped out folks”.
Chuck got the inspiration for that song from Pink Floyd’s song Great gig in the sky. It’s this really weird ass dreamy tripped out song. And like mid-way through the end, there’s this white lady and she’s just like screaming and wailing! And it almost gives you chills because it’s ugly and it’s raw. And they were like, 'We need you to sing like this'… It was out of my comfort zone. But for artistic sake, I had to do something out of my comfort zone. The next time, you’ll hear a whole new side of me. I might even do a country song”.
Another one of the greatest musical displays on this project is a song called ‘Blind Paradise’. A bottom heavy cadence with a chord progression that never goes where your ear thinks it’s going to. Debórah tamed the chord structure with a melodic structure that navigated the pivot notes with precision and grace. It’s an extremely urgent sounding track that Debórah uses to lament her frustration with the music industry and overnight sensations.
”When I first started writing this, it was really upon the emergence of auto-tune…rappers singing and the chocolate rain guy, who was on Jimmy Kimmel cuz he made a stupid song on YouTube. It started making me think, what’s going on right now? We’ve got all these people on YouTube who are freaking famous for nothing. You can’t even hear anybody now, everyone sounds like a robot to me right now with this auto-tune thing… Lots of them (celebrities) have no grooming, don’t know how to sing, have no real performance skills and they’re super-duper celebrities living this lifestyle that underground artists can’t even imagine having that type of fame and being revered by all these people. That (frustration) coupled with a conversation I had with someone one day giving me all this advice about what I should be doing. This is a person I didn’t even consider to be in the right place to even be talking to me about this. On the journey…our perspectives are so different. How can you tell me how to do what I do, when you haven’t done what I’ve done? It’s not even coming from an arrogant place. It was kinda like me saying, I appreciate your advice, you’re definitely giving it because you give a crap. Because you care, but let me do what I do.”
As a singer/songwriter this song challenged her to not only write a melody that was going to flow well over such an odd progression, but then also to execute it in a way that sounds just as smooth and cohesive. She stepped up to the plate and knocked the ball out of the park.
I could go on and on about all the tracks on the album because they are all that good and Debórah and I talked for just that long. Each song is a complete artistic phrase unto itself, so it’s easy to listen to the album though and through. Jazz professors of the future will retain this project in their repertoire of references to teach their students about the melodic phrasing geniuses who came before them. The bottom line is that this is a solid project that a true music lover will more than appreciate. You should have it already and if you don’t, go get it.
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