Gary Clark Jnr's latest album takes its name from photographic formats. Let me fill you in: RAW is a digital negative that allows the camera to capture as much uncompressed detail. JPEG is a popular format for digital images and compresses them to make them easier to send and store, but does sacrifice original image quality.
CGJ's album does what it says on the label: it allows us to zoom in and savour the minute details, but also allows us a more mainstream, easily digestable version of the album's stop off of politics and culture.
The photographic term here elaborates on Clarke as an artist. He's never been one to work in conventional realm of blues. He's more of a musical hoover, sucking up particles of genres, whirling them up and compressing them into his own sound. This time his sound seems more all encompassing and stylistically natural: it just flows out of him, unrestrained and well RAW.
I should add at this point that the album is actually an acronym: Jealousy, Pride, Envy, Greed, Rules, Alter-ego, Words. So yes, while this review waxes lyrical about the hidden meaning of the album's title, it also encompasses a breadth of human emotion. Post pandemic we've been driven into a world where all the world's ills and social failings have been exposed and our behaviour to one another, our love and intolerance have been writ large. The opening lyrics of 'Hyperwave' really speak volumes about how far we haven't progressed: "Let's change the world, tear our views apart, before we fade away can we hit the restart" but they are also laced with the optimism for the future. "I can feel it now, heading towards a brighter day."
Another photographic pun (a snapshot) of the human condition is splayed out in the smooth George Clinton collab 'Funk Witch U.' 'What About The children' with maestro Stevie Wonder continues the soulful vibes that shine from this album. The track is a modern day 'Living For The City' and there's a bitter tragedy that fifty years later we Stevie is still singing about the same social political issues.
Funk, psychadelic, rock, hip hop, blues are already in his armory. He adds jazz into the mix this time too with legendary trumpet player Keyon Harrold joining on 'Alone Together'.
This is Gary Clark Jnr's first album since 2019 and God knows a lot has happened globally since then. This time around, his spin on roots music is perhaps more candid than ever and strives to let us take a good look at ourselves, dig deep and make the future a better place.
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