Kali Uchis – Red Moon In Venus
Love, in all its emotional, spiritual, and physical expressions, is unspooled across Red Moon In Venus, the third record from Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis
The word ‘love’ immediately spills out of Uchis’ lips in the whispered opener in My Garden..., which rapidly transitions into I Wish you Roses, a track dripping with raw beauty and lush instrumentation. On the Omar Apollo-guested Worth the Wait, Uchis lets loose – 'The mirror’s on my ceiling, so I can watch you top me' – before they both get brutally honest: 'Most people don’t know how to love, that’s why they’re empty'.
Then, on Fantasy, the gear shifts in a hedonistic direction. The song kicks off with a soft slow swirl while boyfriend Don Toliver hums, 'I wanna dance, throw my hands in the air'. This is before Uchis issues her lover with sensual instructions and material desires across a pulsating club-ready beat: 'Diamonds on my wrist, that’s my love language / Kisses down my back, starting from my neck'. Just as things begin to boil over into an ecstatic release, Uchis swiftly turns off the switch in a sonic act of blue-balling.
Across the album, Uchis seamlessly slips between English and Spanish, like on Moonlight where she intones about the pleasure of getting high with a lover. When the journey comes to a close, it couldn’t be clearer that, in Uchis’ world, love is the message.
Listen to: Worth the Wait, Fantasy, Moonlight