On “Frontline,” Kelela Fills Her Largest Canvas Yet
On Cut 4 Me, her still-great debut mixtape from 2013, Kelela emerged with a sound and identity that were more or less fully formed. With an airy voice and nimble melodic sensibility, she sang about the wounds and rewards of 21st-century love, daringly navigating beats that whizzed and stuttered like the technology mediating so many of our relationships today. She and her stable of producers fused the heartache of contemporary R&B with the futuristic sounds of the dance-music underground, continuing where Aaliyah and Timberland, or Ciara and Jazze Pha, left off. The music Kelela has released since then–much of it on 2015’s well-received Hallucinogen EP–hasn’t drastically altered that sound, but brought it into focus, with snares that hit harder, bass that throbs more resonantly, a voice that sits confidently at the center of the mix.
On…