D'Angelo is pictured in this undated handout video. After years on hiatus, D’Angelo is back on tour and performing newer material.
D'Angelo, the sabbatical-taking soulman in the cocked fedora, was in high mood at Sound Academy, beginning a rare local concert with Left and Right, an appreciation of bedroom motions that took on a more James Brown-styled excitability than was heard on its recorded 2000 version. Brown Sugar, from the 1995 album of that name, was thrilled-up as well, with its silky-stoned original groove replaced by something much heavier. A snippet of Feel Like Makin' Love gave his audience a touch of the sexy narcosis for which D'Angelo is known and appreciated, but the moment was brief.
Brief and tantalizing – if nothing else – the ace neo-soul singer with the pink guitar in his hands is practiced in the art of the tease. D'Angelo's sequel to his sublime 2000 album Voodoo has been nearly finished for years (we've been told and then told again), and yet it never makes it to the front window of the iTunes store. If his show at Sound Academy was any indication, the perpetually forthcoming follow-up will be celebrative and energized.
If we can't hear new D'Angelo officially, the man's shows – including his Montreal debut performance on Thursday – do offer newer material. Ain't That Easy featured a stormy guitar solo from one of the eight band members (of which none were named Questlove, the collaborator and Roots drummer who has his own life to live). Really Love, with its balmy guitar lilt, was a languid vehicle for D'Angelo's falsetto croon. The Charade, a hit in waiting, rocked Prince-like.
A spellbinding encore set began with D'Angelo alone, taking the electric piano for Smokey Robinson's Cruisin', in which the sentiment that the music was "made for love" was self-apparent and inarguable. The first seconds of the liquid and aphrodisiacal Untitled (How Does it Feel) drew audible consent from ladies: "Take off your shirt," one of them yelled, to no successful end. A younger, sleeker D'Angelo might have obliged, but not these days apparently.
Another unreleased number, Sugah Daddy, elevated things back to party level, complete with show-stopping "bamp-bamp-bamp-bamp-bamp" down-beats. There was a riot going on; the show ended on the rise. A new album will come eventually. His crowd waits without complaint. Such is the voodoo that D'Angelo does.
Brad Wheeler