Album Review:

Gil Scott-Heron
I'm New Here
Release Date: 08/02/2010


In the seventeen years since his last record Spirits, Gil Scott-Heron has become a fallen icon of popular music. His socio-political poetry and songs reached out in the 1970s to a generation of disillusioned Americans, his influence spreading through jazz, funk, soul, blues and rap – the latter being a genre he is often accredited with helping to found. It was in prison, serving one of the many drugs-related sentences that have plagued his life, that he was approached by XL owner Richard Russell to record what would become I’m New Here. A 28-minute work comprising four covers, some original monologues and offcuts from recording sessions: this album is, musically and lyrically, a far cry from the protest acid-jazz of his 70s heyday.

Beginning and ending with a two-part tribute to his grandmother, ‘On Coming From a Broken Home’, it is clear that the artist has turned his attention inwards, to the matter of his own demons. There’s further evidence of this shift in the personalised versions of Robert Johnson’s ‘Me and the Devil’ and Bobby Bland’s ‘I’ll Take Care of You’, the one transformed into a trip-hop stomper pierced by Scott-Heron’s roaring, audibly ravaged voice; the other seeing him revive his famous baritone for a more familiar-sounding soulful ballad. The latter of these two particularly stands out. Sparse instrumentation – kick drum, vibrato strings and piano – introduce a weary, pained voice that can’t fail to stir a sublime nostalgia in the listener. Another key musical offering is ‘New York is Killing Me’, in which the album’s glitchy and otherwise gloomy ambience is complemented by handclaps, cymbal crashes and a gospel choir. It is unlike anything Scott-Heron has ever done, and is all the more rewarding for it; his voice is being treated in new ways, in new contexts.

Throughout the album, we find Scott-Heron in especially meditative and unforgiving mood; but whilst pieces such as ‘The Crutch’ are memorable as showcases for Scott-Heron’s unique poetic talents, their arrangements are uninspiring and, frankly, overbearing. Worse still, stripping away the electronic arrangements conceivably leaves us with the mere bare bones of an album: excerpts from Scott-Heron’s writings, rehashes of old ideas (‘Your Soul and Mine’) and a few successful re-workings of others’ songs. As a whole, it feels neither satisfactory nor satisfying. Here’s hoping this album will mark the resurgence of Scott-Heron’s career. It should not, however, be celebrated as a true return to prominence.

6/10

By Bengee Gibson