A genre as stagnant and overexposed as R&B is the last place any jaded fan of urban music would go snooping for reinvention, but leave it to super-producer Dan “The Automator” Nakamura to throw the proverbial screwball.
The move is nothing new for the Nakamura, a man whose purpose behind each new release seems to be making it completely different from the last one. His tool of choice: the concept album.
He began by providing the perfect array of cacophonic string samples and bass grooves to complement Kool Keith’s space-aged libido on 1996’s Dr. Octagonecologyst, then followed with a satiric romp through his fictional modeling academy with 1999’s So?How’s Your Girl? 2000’s Deltron 3030 provided a forum for the otherworldly freestylings of Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, the emcee who anonymously joined Nakamura for this past summer’s who-the-hell-are-these-guys hit, Gorillaz.
The album, his first real departure from hip-hop, turned out to be the most subversive hodgepodge of pop this side of Midnite Vultures and challenged the TRL crowd’s preconceived notions of what should be in today’s number seven slot. With his latest effort (under the eponymous guise of “Nathaniel Merriweather Presents Lovage”), Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By, Nakamura seems intent on further undermining generic norms, this time lampooning the brazen homogeneity of R&B.
Even from the album’s tongue-in-cheek title (a direct poke at the monomaniacal sexuality of Barry White-ish crooning), the listener gets an immediate impression of the crooked-angle view through which Nakamura plans on examining the basest of human emotions. What follows is an operetta that takes the listener through the musical equivalent of a one-night stand, complete with coy flirting, pretentious chatter, unbridled passion, heated climax, and, inevitably, regret.
The pawns in Nakamura’s game of love are portrayed by Elysian Fields singer Jennifer Charles and Mike Patton of the description-defying Mr. Bungle (no strangers to genre-bending music themselves). Doing equal parts acting and singing, Charles and Patton evoke emotions ranging from the excited clumsiness of everyone’s first time to the hedonistic abandon of an all-nighter.
“Sex (I’m a)” cleverly plays on the oft-prescribed roles of the act of making love, as Patton proudly chants “I’m a man!” while Charles groans every dirty female moniker that will satisfy her lover. Other treats include “Book of the Month” and “Lifeboat,” which find their protagonists pondering postmodern love with an almost audible smirk.
The Automator’s production is uncharacteristically laidback, never letting you take the album as seriously as you think he wants you to. Ever the crate-digger, he seamlessly combines cheeky old-school samples with melodramatic instrumentation. It’s part Marvin Gaye, part “Boogie Nights,” and part late-night infomercial for the Spice network, but the end result is unmistakably all Automator.
